Little Black Dress ver Falkner
by Luna Tiger
Summary: Falkner centric / G to R / A drabble submission log that focuses on every named Falkner pairing in the fandom. Straight, gay, pokemon, there are no limits. Honorshipping, Flyingshipping, Fathershipping, Glidershipping, it will all eventually be there.
1. Gardenia

**Edition**: none (first set)  
- _Set #_: 4**  
Character**: Gardenia  
- _Pairing_: Windridershipping  
- _Universe_: "Psychic Fabric**"  
Rating**: E (Everybody)  
- _Warnings_: none

- m - a - t - t - e -

I started writing these drabbles without a point to them, just little exercises; I didn't abide by the 100-word limit either (that's just bogus). They then became a way of pushing my creativity; some places I succeed, others I fail.

All the couples represented are either overt, "not really", implied, or are set-ups. The point is, it's about the interaction and the process that shows why they are a couple, what would make them a couple, or how it would start. There are some that are obviously one-sided, as well.

There are several **R-rated drabbles**, but nothing so terribly graphic (frank, but not graphic). There are also drabbles that focus on **incest** and **human/pokémon** relations. Please read for any warnings.

These have been posted on my livejournal (Falkner shorts) and the SPPf forums (Project Cycle Marathon: Falkner).

...As for the Japanese line-breaks, I just needed a change of pace from my usual ones.

- i - k - u - z - o -

"Is that yours??"

She had come up silently, ambushing him from his right, obviously _for_ him, yet was looking nowhere at him. Instead, the strange woman was looking up with blatant adoration at the _thing_ resting, twisted into his hair, atop his head. Except there was no denying ownership under that queer gaze. "Uh, yes, yes it's mine."

"It's absolutely a_dor_able!"

"Hoppip!" the little plant pokémon preened, pleased to oblige a compliment, and even unburied itself from his hair (he'd have to brush it _again_, and soon) to leap towards her. Falkner knew its game, being cute and helpless and cuddly to advocate attention, but as the woman caught it with a care that reminded him of his mother, yet had the hands of a hard worker, he didn't recall it back. Only appeared annoyed by its desertion; it did it often enough.

"Healthy color, perfectly trimmed leaves, infectious energy." She was beaming at it, then at him, like she had just found something so shiny and new to wish to have as her own. "Do you raise many grass-types?"

"Ah, no." He shook his head. "This is my only one."

She didn't seem too disappointed. "You have a knack. You'd be a good grass-type trainer, if you ever thought about it."

He never had, and it turned him off to think about being surrounded by grass-types, that didn't have what most flying-types did: the sky. But his thoughts turned to Corey and his Venusaur, Zackie and his new Weepinbell out there on the field, mock battling with Max's Shuppet, and wondered if Corey once wanted that, or if Zackie will ultimately favor the type.

"I'm a flying-type trainer," he admitted, then felt better for it.

She sighed wistfully. "Well, we can't all be perfect." And she held out her hand. "I'm Gardenia."

He took it. "Falkner."


	2. Mewtwo

**Edition**: none (first set)  
- _Set #_: 5**  
Character**: Mewtwo  
- _Pairing_: Surrendershipping  
- _Universe_: n/a**  
Rating**: E (Everybody)  
- _Warnings_: none

- i - k - u - z - o -

The night he first found himself sharing a rooftop with a cloak was the night with the crescent moon and cloud-cover. On the roof, minding his own business, and denying he was hiding for his own sanity. He blocked out his mind using the shinai in his hands, running through the repetitive motions of his exercises, focusing on the balance of the wood and its steadfastness in his grip.

It was the unnatural wind that jarred him from his zen-like state into honed instinct, brandishing the shinai to a ready attack stance. He barely had the spectre in his visage before the bright, blue glow blinded and surprised him, and carried the wooden sword out of his hands with a speed that rubbed his skin raw.

The shinai hovered, leaving Falkner only slightly flabbergasted.

Psychickery was nothing he'd never seen before, even in humans. Faced with it directly outside of battle was new, however. Faced with it at all wasn't something he was prepared for, either. Not from a towering ghost that was now furling its cloak to reach out and grasp the hilt of the wooden sword--

The hand wasn't human.

"_A form of martial art?_"

Falkner wasn't in his league anymore. His body screamed 'defense' and there wasn't one that could be used to handle everything that could be thrown at him if this was going to go south. "Yes," he said curtly.

"_I see. Is it for harm?_"

"There's harm in every martial art," was the general response, because it was as much a truth as it was a disclaimer.

"_Do **you** use it for harm?_"

Falkner thinned his mouth. He would use it for harm if it meant keeping another safe, as would any true practitioner. But there were people who thought if you turned your discipline on another person for whatever reason, you were automatically evil to create a situation where you would almost likely _always_ have the upper hand. To simply say, "I use it to protect others," was no better than lying, because that was just an excuse and there were always exceptions to the rule you lived by.

The shinai was back on his side as quickly as it was taken, leaving Falkner to stare dumbly at it now as he had just a moment ago.

"_I will return tomorrow._"

The entire encounter lasted less than two minutes. The following encounters got predominately longer.


	3. Blaziken and Empoleon

**Edition**: none (first set)  
- _Set #_: 2  
**Character**: Blaziken and Empoleon  
- _Pairing_: Bushidoshipping  
- _Universe_: n/a**  
Rating**: E (Everybody)  
- _Warnings_: none

- i - k - u - z - o -

"They aren't of ours."

"You've said so a thousand times."

"And you haven't listened. So I will keep telling you."

Oriole glided away-- there was no other way to ever describe the berth of her robes flowing over the ground-- leaving her son to his two alternate cases that he took the pains to raise from the egg. Sure they weren't flying-types, but they had the making of birds, which struck him with proper respect. Respect his mother mirrored, but she'd never sully her lily white hands on their down. "Too much like your father," she would say, a man she loved with her soul, because his soul was like a bird's: free on the wind. What she loathed was his free mind, always thinking outside the box of perspective.

Wren Hayabusan would have applauded Falkner's choice if he wasn't out there, being free, without contact for two years. In the meantime, Falkner polish the sleek metal of Empoleon's flippers, groomed Blaziken's talons, combed them both, and kept wishing he could take one second to enjoy a battle out of the sanction of Gym Leader regulations and truly watch them shine where they belonged: in the midst of the chaos of battle. His two kings of the sea and the mountains.


	4. Winona

**Edition**: none (second set)  
- _Set #_: 3  
**Character**: Winona  
- _Pairing_: Flyingshipping  
- _Universe_: n/a**  
Rating**: E (Everybody)  
- _Warnings_: none

- i - k - u - z - o -

She met him when they were teenagers, still ungainly, awkward, and not Gym Leaders. Her grandmother took her to the PokéRinger competition near Olivine City the weekend she visited. Winona had spent weeks specially training her Taillow to be a champion flyer and to use its unique coloring to its advantage in sky-fights, and this was perfect.

They made it to the finals, her with her Taillow and him with his Natu. Natu weren't built for the kind of flying required, but if it made it this far....

She won, he lost, and she could tell he was trying to take it well. "Well done," he said, shaking her hand.

"You were great too." And she smiled a little to herself at how genuinely taken aback by the comment, feeling too good to think about it.

But that's when his younger brother crowded in, delightfully going on about how big brother lost to a girl and that she should marry himself so a good flying-type trainer would still be in the family.

She blushed, he blushed, and the brother continued to be evil.


	5. Corey

**Edition**: none (first set)  
- _Set #_: 1  
**Character**: Corey  
- _Pairing_: Pidgeotshipping  
- _Universe_: n/a**  
Rating**: E (Everybody)  
- _Warnings_: **incest  
Note**: Corey is from the first movie; my fanon is they are related

- i - k - u - z - o -

They had the same mother, they had the same father, but sometimes, they felt world's apart from each other, and it wasn't the the four year age difference to blame. Sometimes it was like strangers passing in the night, barely a word, rarely a smile, each a reminder of things they want, never considering what they would be missing in return. Because what was there to miss?

There was a simmer there, a jealousy, an envy, a wish. The same blood coursed their veins, and sometimes it would burn, wanting to hate, wanting to love, wanting to be just normal around each other. They weren't raised together, they never had _that_ bond. All they did was live in the same house, eat at the same table, learn the same lessons, until Corey split on his tenth birthday, a Pidgey in hand and no look back.

But when he comes back, lately, Falkner is always there to greet him with a handshake, never a smile, but always a kiss under the cover of night.


	6. Chuck

**Edition**: none (first set)  
- _Set #_: 3  
**Character**: Chuck  
- _Pairing_: Galeshipping  
- _Universe_: n/a**  
Rating**: E (Everybody)  
- _Warnings_: none

- i - k - u - z - o -

Touch was never something he got. His mother never did, and his father wasn't around enough to make all his hugs and grabs feel normal, only special. So when his father brought him to Chuck's stead once, on a leave his mother only barely granted, Falkner was surprised at how much touch one person could stand.

Chuck was one with physical contact, as all martial artists were. Him and Wren were always touching, slaps on the back and shoulder butting, like schoolyard boys who never grew up. And every time a hand would come down on Falkner, he'd buckle under the strength of the blow with a grunt. Chuck would simply blink, then laugh that Falkner was too skinny, needed more muscle, shouldn't be delicate. The bruises he found the next morning only served to make Falkner realize Chuck was right.

Chuck never stopped, but there were obvious pains to lighten the smacks and pats, and he could feel his father laughing at him every time. And neither did the teasing: too pale, too frail, was his mother not feeding him meat? And only when Falkner finally let a slip of a smile through, did Chuck grab him in a mock choke hold and teach him what it really was to be a man (so he said).

He realized it later, when they left, after Chuck waved with a smile of triumph on his face, as his father looked more relaxed and less confined from civilized life than he'd seen in a long time. All that touch wasn't a need from any one person, an accident of vicinity that happened far too much, or a product of how one was raised, or any such ingrained nature to be some physical force.

It was because they were _friends_. And now maybe, Falkner was Chuck's too.


	7. Hoppip

**Edition**: none (second set)  
- _Set #_: 1  
**Character**: Hoppip  
- _Pairing_: Woobieshipping  
- _Universe_: Psychic Fabric**  
Rating**: E (Everybody)  
- _Warnings_: none

- i - k - u - z - o -

None of his pokémon had ever been as frustrating as Hoppip. Bred with restraint or taught self-control and discipline, Hoppip became the first that brushed away his conduct in favor of attention and affection. It put stress on Falkner, his mind shooting back and forth between questioning his 'touch' and imagining what sort of tirade his mother would make if he returned to the Gym with not only a grass-type (never mind his entire entourage; that was a bigger can of worms), but one that wasn't as rigorously militaristic as their standards demanded.

Though when Hoppip fought under his command, regardless of its dainty style that used its qualities of playfulness to its best advantage, he _sometimes_ believed he could flip his mother the bird when Hoppip won, or when it looked at him with devastation when he gently handed it to Nurse Joy--a venerable stranger, no matter how many times Falkner did it--or let it crowd into the crook of his neck or into the tangles of his hair...he sometimes believed he hadn't lived a trainer's life in years.

So to the wind with it all. Hoppip was best just the way it was.


	8. Tyson from Team Rocket

**Edition**: none (second set)  
- _Set #_: 5  
**Character**: Tyson (Team Rocket)  
- _Pairing_: Ferocityshipping  
- _Universe_: Idol Theft**  
Rating**: MA (Mature Audiences)  
- _Warnings_:dream!**non-consensualism**

- i - k - u - z - o -

_"I know what you like...I know what you fear."_

**No no no no no, don'tdon'tsdon't please don't!**

Fingers locked into his throat and no air Tatsumi let escape into his mouth through his own fell into his lungs. A tease, a torment, all panic-stricken laced with fear. Hayato gasped on nothing, screamed on nothing, gagged on Tatsumi's tongue. His hands were strapped down and chafing, he suffered Tatsumi's own slipping into the opening of the uwagi_, and he had no strength to bite._

"Next time, boy, I will hurt you good."

-8-8-

Hayato woke up in his hospital bed, the lights dimly on and no noise _anywhere_. Panic clutched him tightly, and he tried to see into every corner of the room. All empty, but he swore he was missing one, the one Tatsumi was hiding it. His body shook, he choked and clawed briefly at his own neck, and trying his hardest not to cry, because--

He was pretty sure he could still taste the dream.


	9. Janine

**Edition**: Regional Girls (fifth set)  
- _Set #_: 1  
**Character**: Janine  
- _Pairing_: Fathershipping  
- _Universe_: n/a**  
Rating**: E (Everyone)  
- _Warnings_: none

- i - k - u - z - o -

"Wait, wait, wait!"

Falkner and Corey looked back in unison. The ninja girl was hot on their heels. And a finger was soon jabbed in one's face. "I want a rematch!"

With a rumble of annoyance, Falkner gently pushed the wayward limb out from the cross-hairs of his vision. "Are you really that mad you lost?"

"I was distracted! It wasn't a fair fight."

"Those are your own consequences, then."

"Please, Falkner, give me a rematch!"

He stared at her critically. "My partners need rest, I'm due back tomorrow, and I don't linger in places if I'm saying I'll be somewhere else at a certain time. So I cannot give you a 'rematch' right now."

She looked warily hopeful. "'Right now'?"

"Find me later in Violet City, in a week or so. That is, if you're serious for other reasons than you're being a sore loser for losing to me. If you want a rematch that badly, I'm not coming to you."

Falkner spun back around and left her standing there, Corey at least taking the time to excuse the both of them politely from her company. And when they were out of her ninja-trained range...

"She's cute when she's angry," Corey said casually.

Falkner glowered.


	10. Moltres

**Edition**: none (second set)  
- _Set #_: 2  
**Character**: Moltres  
- _Pairing_: Fervorshipping  
- _Universe_: n/a**  
Rating**: E (Everyone)  
- _Warnings_: none

- i - k - u - z - o -

Mother had always said the body is more important than the elements it covets, so long as it can _fly_. No dragon lives on the grounds, no bugs, no fish. But none of the ones he envied, none of the ones he worshiped, _burned_ with a fire that seared the soul into ash without marring the body.

He wanted to _touch it_, and at the same time saw his wants alone as a desecration to the glory that was a Titan. Its perfect form was bathed in the hell storm of its own making, born from the heated depths of the world (said their mythology) and emerged to rule its place in the sky. It burst through the earth with a tunneling pillar that connected the planet's heart to the atmosphere, screamed a cloud-ripping cry, and let itself ignite into a furious blaze with the oxygen. Who could dare want to sully that with human grime?

But it bent over to his level, inspecting him, so much closer to him in a single, graceful move, and it chirped. Expectant.

Falkner put a shy hand to its beak, and found it warm.


	11. Paul

**Edition**: none (second set)  
- _Set #_: 4  
**Character**: Paul  
- _Pairing_: Cynicshipping  
- _Universe_: n/a**  
Rating**: E (Everyone)  
- _Warnings_: none

- i - k - u - z - o -

Paul wasn't the first trainer who walked through his doors to challenge him who had a hard look in his eye, but it was the first time one of them--with that look--displayed anything but a cock-sure attitude and a rotten personality all round. He bowed respectfully and asked in formal language for a battle, when his entire demeanor screamed he was nothing of the sort.

Falkner could make no excuse not to battle him, if the only thing that worried him was a conflicting composition.

Paul lost by a small margin; too close for comfort, in Falkner's opinion. He recalled the exhausted Pidgeot with pride and sympathy, and tucked its 'ball away while Paul closed the distance between them. His look never changed once during the battle, never shocked, never surprised, never excited. But he said with an easy neutrality, "I'll return when I'm stronger."

Falkner awaited that day, if only to get his second chance to dissect this one. "And I'll be here."


	12. Volkner

**Edition**: Electric (third set)  
- _Set #_: 2  
**Character**: Volkner  
- _Pairing_: Wildshipping  
- _Universe_: Before Elitism**  
Rating**: E (Everyone)  
- _Warnings_: none

- i - k - u - z - o -

_I look at you and always think--_

Volkner glanced across the stadium. Falkner had his hawk eyes hooked on the unfolding battle, Flint fighting the Johto Elite Will. So stern, so serious, so disciplined. It was just like they said: he probably had a stick where it shouldn't be.

_I look at you and always think--_

Falkner was cornered by the vending machines, or so Volkner believed. "I want to battle you."

"I don't even know you."

"Wasn't that the point once?"

Now those hawk eyes were narrowed on _him_, and Volkner's heart skipped a little. He smiled with relish, remembering back to a time when battling wasn't about badges, but about fun. Battling Flint wasn't fun; battling _with_ Flint was. Staring at photos, sparse magazine articles, websites, and old video footage wasn't fun; finally looking at a fire cracker, finally challenging this creature to wax the boy from his system wasn't fun either...and he only hoped the battle was.

_I look at you and always think--_

Falkner recognized electricity without needing to see it spark. Luxray didn't have to do a thing before Falkner was baring his teeth, fighting his hate against the type. Predictable.

But no one had predicted some of the risky moves Falkner had chosen going through his first League battle, never mind taking a hit from a Magneton's Thunderbolt to save his Pidgeotto from it. He might have lost the round and gained a Pidgeot from it, but he was currently the best top trainer to turn to if 'unbridled' was what one was asking for.

_I look at you and always think--_

Volkner looked down-- no, _at_ Falkner's vibrant countenance, trying to bury the fire and shame from losing, and held out his hand. "Amazing."

Falkner eyed him skeptically, but Volkner was resolute. With no hesitance, Falkner took his hand and squeezed firmly.

_I cannot touch you._


	13. Holly

**Edition**: High-Flyer (fourth set)  
- _Set #_: 1  
**Character**: Holly  
- _Pairing_: Austringershipping  
- _Universe_: none**  
Rating**: E (Everyone)  
- _Warnings_: none

- i - k - u - z - o -

She walked into the Gym with an air of personal stake. She marched in, stood center of the somewhat occupied space of the main foyer, and announced she wanted to see who was in charge.

He walked in with an air of mildly-irritated confusion. He spoke crisply, asked her what her business was, and implied she was rude.

She turned on him like a wolf. She stalked up to him, insisted she be trained under his tutelage, and implied he wasn't what she expected.

He asked what she meant.

She said he was shorter than she pictured.

He didn't like her.

She was beginning not to like him.

They fell in fine.

Mother had a heart attack.


	14. Ash Ketchum

**Edition**: OTP (eighth set)  
- _Set #_: 1  
**Character**: Ash  
- _Pairing_: Ascensionshipping  
- _Universe_: none**  
Rating**: E (Everyone)  
- _Warnings_: none

- i - k - u - z - o -

The fog was thick as any cloud and just as dark beneath it, the sun having barely risen on the horizon. The dawn choir was in full stride, and the chill reminded Ash why these mornings were best spent inside, in bed.

Falkner had other ideas. The fog might have made its own ominous atmosphere, but the amount of genuine _smiling_ Falkner was doing set its own mystery. He was used to the Gym Leader being somber, angry, proud, anxious, but when he smiled with _happiness_, it was generally fleeting. Whatever was beyond the mist, Falkner wanted to see it. And Ash was going to be privy to its secret.

"Come on."

Ash wasn't in a position to protest, even being led by hand through the forest. Their feet crunched against the moist ground, snapping twigs and feet sinking into the frost-wet soil. But there was also the sound of water softly lapping, among it all as they deepened the trek, and be began to see the shadow of a small lake through the dismal air. It was lined with depressing trees, wilting under the bend of fog; he was sure they looked kinder in the clarity of sunlight, and amidst the roots of one dour specimen was a rock, hard and cold to the touch, and Falkner tugged him onto it.

"Out there," he pointed, toward the center, and Ash saw the flickering immediately, a faint thing if you weren't looking directly at it. Falkner dropped to sit on the boulder's gentle curve, and Ash remained standing. Because the fog _bent_ around the flickering, the ethereal shimmering, until he knew exactly what he was looking at, walking across the surface of the water.

With long ribbons and flowing mane, with a great crest upon its head, it was an unmistakable blue wonder: Suicune had come to the area.

"Have you missed him?" Falkner teased quietly. "This is good luck, you know."

Ash didn't doubt it for a second.


	15. Whitney

**Edition**: OTP (eighth set)  
- _Set #_: 4  
**Character**: Whitney  
- _Pairing_: RollingWindshipping  
- _Universe_: none**  
Rating**: E (Everyone)  
- _Warnings_: none  
**Theme**: "puzzles" by esm8m

- i - k - u - z - o -

The minute they stepped one foot into the ruins, the inkling of this venture being a bad idea flourished to full-out fact. Whitney just wouldn't be turned about though. "What's the worst that can happen?" she told him often, going deeper and deeper inside.

Falkner only had one answer and he would never say it out loud: "This is _you_ we're talking about here." Whitney and large areas with many turns generally equaled being seriously lost. If she wasn't entirely sold on bug-types, Falkner would have gotten her a Spinarak or an Ariados long ago. It worked for the fable-hero Tesius who navigated the labyrinth of the Kenotauros, with his special Spinarak spinning him a golden thread to trace back to the entrance.*

But Whitney was Whitney; she wouldn't be dissuaded from going where she wanted to go, but she also never said no to tag-alongs. No telling where she'd turn up unescorted. At least in proper company, she might not wind up too bad off. Except...

"Whoa."

A flashlight dropped, and it slipped its beam all around the cavernous room, illuminating against the Unown glyphs and etched murals, but what it missed, and what the other flashlight was settled on, was the great stone slabs, four-by-four-missing-one, in the far wall, with a small, matching podium right before it.

"Oh, it's a puzzle!"

A sliding 15-puzzle. Falkner grabbed her shoulder before she could even touch the podium with matching tiles. "Wait, are you crazy?" They weren't even supposed to be in the Ruins of Alph, and she wanted to mess with what was inside in? But that wasn't taking inside her head; Whitney blinked owlishly at him, playacting the six year old instead of the crazy fourteen year old she somehow was.

"They say you need to solve the ruins' puzzles to get out."

She said it so blamelessly, it was hard to remember she (most of the time) really didn't know how she was gliding through life. He balked. She smiled and put her hands on the podium. "Now, this goes here, and that looks like a corner..."

They were in so much trouble.

- m - a - t - t - e -

* - Perseus? Minotaur? Ring any bells?


	16. Honchkrow

**Edition**: "Abby Normal" (ninth set)  
- _Set #_: 2  
**Character**: Honchkrow  
- _Pairing_: Yazukashipping  
- _Universe_: none**  
Rating**: E (Everyone)  
- _Warnings_: none

- i - k - u - z - o -

It was impressive in all the wrong places. It wasn't as if Falkner had never seen a Honchkrow before, but they weren't native creatures to the wild. And no one imported Dusk stones to simply evolve the wildlife. Except it was specially colored, and as interesting as that can be to the casual collector, there were some species with rare coloring that weren't worth it.

But it had no fear of him, and he tossed it the last of his sandwich, which it gobbled, and a few one-cent pieces, which distracted it as he wandered off. However, Falkner was only half a mile away when it found him again. It landed heavily before him, blocking his path, and fluffed its feathers for one of many reasons Falkner could figure, but fighting wasn't one of them. It threw out a wing. "Krow?"

Falkner cocked an eyebrow. If he correctly suspected why it returned, it only strengthened his reasoning why he'd never use any of the Murkrow line: they could play dirty. It was in their very nature to be deceitful, steal, and collect. "If you want more shiny things," he stated firmly, "I gave you all I have."

"Krow?" It switched wings. "Hooooooon?"

"Yes, really."

"Hon hon, honchkrow."

Falkner thinned his mouth. He let go of the strap of his rucksack and delved into his pocket. Fingers closing around the other other thing he knew he could spare, he held up the Zephyr badge. "Will this get me passage?"

The Honchkrow dropped its wing and peered at it, entranced as the sunlight filtering through the thick foliage alighted the silvery surface. Falkner smirked, and tossed into the air. In a flurry of purple plumage, the Honchkrow leaped after it, snatching it in midair and navigating through the trees like it was born on the air.

Falkner dashed off.

-8-8-

A week later, back in civilization, Falkner was on the Gym's roof, sweeping like it was zen. He was knocked from his clear mind-state when the tine of metal striking the asphalt rattled the atmosphere...which was impossible.

A shadow passed overhead. Falkner didn't look up. "You've got to be kidding." He looked behind himself.

The Zephyr badge twinkled innocently.


	17. Aaron

**Edition**: Regional Boys (Seventh set)  
- _Set #_: 4  
**Character**: Aaron  
- _Pairing_: Hushshipping  
- _Universe_: none**  
Rating**: E (Everyone)  
- _Warnings_: none

- i - k - u - z - o -

They shared a certain love of preference, blind to anything else and disliking of what trumped that preference. Aaron championed the underused insects, and Falkner championed the dismissed birds. They could have gotten along: others tended to take their preferences for granted, claiming these elites as the weakest link in the chain, and then got their butts whooped with a mighty vengeance.

Except Aaron didn't like Falkner for the same reason Falkner didn't like most electric trainers: birds trumped insects. Aaron would get all huffy and loud whenever Falkner (or any flying trainer, really) was in the vicinity, boasting to the point where Cynthia occasionally chided him quietly but firmly.

So when Flint dragged Aaron off to one of his favorite bars, after his loss to Cynthia for the Champion's position, and was subsequently placed in the company of some nameless man with striking black eyes, imagine Aaron's shock and surprise when after one (reallysuperburninghot) kiss, his nameless stranger's hair naturally flopped over one striking black eye and Aaron was suddenly face-to-face with someone who truly did understand him.

Flint's match-making skills for the win.


	18. Kamon

**Edition**: "I can piss you off, too" (Sixth set)  
- _Set #_: 2  
**Character**: Kamon (GSC rival)  
- _Pairing_: Fallenshipping  
- _Universe_: none**  
Rating**: E (Everyone)  
- _Warnings_: none

- i - k - u - z - o -

Through the doors I storm in.  
I asked you over the clamoring din:  
Will you see a battle through?

I'd give myself up for you.

Fires roaring, people scared.  
You told me I was unprepared.  
I left your place not wanting to.

I'd give myself up for you.

In the darkness I grew fast,  
fighting the demons of our past.  
To me, dragons were nothing new.

I'd give myself up for you.

I watched you dance all in the sky.  
It's a miracle you got so high.  
The color made just for you is blue.

I'd give myself up for you.

Can you really touch so way up there?  
Can the clouds really kiss your hair?  
There's not anything that I would not do.

I'd give myself up for you.

My crimes are all so big but few.  
I'm escorted by men two and two.  
The champion tells me I played true.

Because I'd give myself up for you.


	19. Gary Oak

**Edition**: "I can piss you off, too" (Sixth set)  
- _Set #_: 1  
**Character**: Gary Oak  
- _Pairing_: Brazenshipping  
- _Universe_: none**  
Rating**: E (Everyone)  
- _Warnings_: none

- i - k - u - z - o -

"You're a mean one," Gary sang in amusement, "Mr. Grinch."

Falkner shook his head. "I don't care if Heaven of Perot* walked through those doors, sat down square beside me, and shoved her chest in my face. I don't dance."

"Keep drinking. We'll get you there."

They were older, these days. Gary was less considered Samuel Oak's researching grandson and more called Samuel Oak's trusted representative in places the old man couldn't travel anymore. And sometimes, when his grandfather promised he wouldn't leave Pallet Town for a week, Gary found himself just across the Tojoh Falls in Violet City, because damn if they didn't make their own local alcohol, and make it _well_, for that matter.

Needless to say, he ran into Falkner every so often. Before the calls forewarning his appearance in town became mandatory, and Falkner would always be there at the bar with him, rice wine for the Gym Leader and desperatinis one after another for Kanto's second favorite son. Symbiosis, Gary called it. "I need you to watch after me," he had once put it, slurring just slightly, "and you need me to keep from getting bored to an early grave."

Gary eventually yawned, and Falkner twisted his neck to read the wall clock. After midnight was generally where the line was drawn; it was almost one-thirty in the morning. "Come on, Oak. Tomorrow's another shining day."

"You can stick..." Maybe his tongue swelled or maybe his brain had a rational function, but he didn't finish that sentence. Probably because he wasn't a testy drunk. Gary did "drunk" with a carefree mellowness Falkner hadn't seen in anyone else before. He'd stare at his glass when he wasn't talking, and the world stopped existing for a while, because he wasn't depressed and he wasn't raging about how his life sucked eggs through a tube. Then he'd had an awe-inspiring thought pop into his reverie and had to tell the closest body to him all about it.

Gary barely ever got despairingly sloshed; as long as he could walk on his own two feet, Falkner considered him capable of proper motor skills with the obligatory lean-post. Though half-way down a sidewalk did Gary plant his feet and stare bemusedly into space. Falkner stepped in front of him and asked what was wrong.

The bemusement turned into a smug smile. "Heh, and you said you didn't dance."

"I don't."

"Well, the world's spinning like we are."

- m - a - t - t - e -

* = Perot (per-row) is my fictional island continent I put everything that happens "elsewhere". Heaven is...apparently a Gym Leader there.


	20. Jolteon

**Edition**: Electric (Third set)  
- _Set #_: 4  
**Character**: Jolteon  
- _Pairing_: Liarshipping  
- _Universe_: none**  
Rating**: E (Everyone)  
- _Warnings_: none

- i - k - u - z - o -

"Stop following me!"

The Jolteon stared at him nonplussed, clearly unimpressed by the human's attempt to get rid of it. "Jo'," it barked, and Falkner sullenly recognized it to mean 'no'. He grit his teeth and kept marching forward through town, the Jolteon remaining on his heels.

His mother would _not_ accept, "It followed me home," as an excuse.

He was angry. So when some smart-alec punk challenged him in the middle of the street, some older teen who likely didn't know who he was, Falkner was ready to tear him apart with Pidgeot's claws, except Jolteon rushed to put itself between him and the challenger, its bristles spiked, sparking, and prime for a fight. He glared at it, but it looked back at him with hard, glittering black eyes, resolved to further demonstrate what as ally it would make. It wanted a trainer like no one's business, and it had to choose the one with no alliance toward its kind. Falkner huffed in annoyance and faced his opponent, with a will to obliterate and to vent his frustrations.

"Jolteon, show him exactly why this Gym Leader doesn't use anything but 'weak' flying-types!"

The Sinnoh-bred Gyarados fell like a ton of bricks to Jolteon's speed, agility, and pure vibrancy. And when it was done and the trainer running for the nearest PokéCenter, Falkner stared down the electric-type with scrutiny.

"Fine," he finally grumbled. "But don't say I didn't warn you!"

Jolteon's yip revealed its age (young, so young) and happily crowded against his leg. Falkner sighed. Mother was going to _kill_ him.


	21. Lance

**Edition**: Regional Boys (seventh set)  
- _Set #_: 1  
**Character**: Lance  
- _Pairing_: Holidayshipping  
- _Universe_: Idol Theft**  
Rating**: T (Teen)  
- _Warnings_: none

- i - k - u - z - o -

It was only with grim acceptance that Hayato watched Wataru's little subordinates crate Kikyou's founding statue with so much care. But it didn't go amiss that Hayato was gripping the sleeves of his _uwagi_ a little too tightly, and Wataru led him aside, away from the sight of his loss. "It's for the best."

"I've grown immune to believing so, Wataru-san." He wouldn't take his eyes off the general direction of the crate. "I don't like being intimidated into my actions."

"I've made no threats--"

"I mean Tatsumi!" Hayato hissed. "That he marches into my home to steal our treasures and forces my hand to consider moving them is unacceptable! Giving the statue to you to protect is cowardice on my part, and yet I have no choice. He will come back with more forces than we can handle and it will be lost to the Rockets."

"But Hayato, isn't it honorable to do what can be done to protect what's invaluable?"

"Don't talk to me about 'honor'. Honor is in my blood and my soul. If it had a voice, it would tell me I need to reclaim my honor by truly defeating him, now that I've been insulted, even at the cost of Lugia's idol."

Wataru eyed the shorter man with a critical gaze, Hayato's own stern eyes as piercing as the extinct hawk he was named for. "Come with me, then. Come with me, and help us guard it until they attack. Cut Tatsumi down and get your revenge."

Hayato was momentarily floored by the prospect. The idea hadn't crossed his mind; the gym and his people were always first on his mind, never willing to abandon them. "No."

"Truly?"

"Yes. I've a duty here, and duty precedes vengeance. I won't walk away from it when I've no idea how long I'll be gone."

Wataru smiled humorlessly and nodded. "You ordered up a shiner and a kick to the balls, right?"

Hayato smiled equally so. "I want him walking funny for weeks."

"I'll make sure we get away with it."


	22. Flannery

**Edition**: Regional Girls (fifth set)  
- _Set #_: 1  
**Character**: Flannery  
- _Pairing_: Halfsightshipping  
- _Universe_: Idol Theft**  
Rating**: E (Everyone)  
- _Warnings_: none

- i - k - u - z - o -

"You're like a Flound*, you know that?"

Falkner never jerked his head up fast in his life. "What?!"

Flannery's grin split her face and worked her bare feet playfully into his back. "Yer all prim and coordinated and disciplined everywhere outside this room--okay, except when yer battling, because you can get pretty scary and lose a little control--but once you come back, you always _flop_ onto your bed, just like now. And you don't care who crawls all over you once you have."

Falkner gave her a sour look. "Present company included?"

"I'm in yer bed, rubbing yer back," she crooned. She had her back to the wall, wedged between it and Falkner's prone body. Falkner gave up looking at her and laid flat once more.

"Whatever."

- m - a - t - t - e -

* = A Flound is an on-the-spot creation of a water/ground type in the form of a flounder.


	23. Jaco

**Edition**: High-Flyer (fourth set)  
- _Set #_: 2  
**Character**: Jaco  
- _Pairing_: Biasshipping  
- _Universe_: none**  
Rating**: E (Everyone)  
- _Warnings_: none

- i - k - u - z - o -

They met each other through Corey. Corey met Jaco in Sunyshore, and had a light bulb go off go off in his head when a supposed electric-breeder in training went starry-eyed over his Pidgeot, and accurately pinpointed all of its strengths, care, and abilities. Told him that flying-types were his first love, but a little Electrike and a couple new acquaintances helped him realize electric-types weren't as horrible as he imagined.

Corey asked bluntly if he liked guys as inoffensively as possible. Jaco was insulted and defensively said, "No." Corey sighed theatrically and said that was too bad, because he knew one that Jaco could probably connect with on that level, and maybe get said guy over his dislike of electric-types. Jaco still said, "No."

A few months and a couple one-on-one video calls Corey wasn't involved with later, Corey was escorting Jaco to Violet City, all with a figurative red bow around him.


	24. Lt Surge

**Edition**: Electric (third set)  
- _Set #_: 3  
**Character**: Lt. Surge  
- _Pairing_: Taikoshipping  
- _Universe_: none**  
Rating**: E (Everyone)  
- _Warnings_: none

- i - k - u - z - o -

Wren had many friends in positions of power across the continent. When he wasn't home, he migrated between their residences and nowhere-but-the-open-sky-cascade, as he liked to call it. He occasionally took his son, before his mother made the push for him to succeed Wren (where in between Wren's ventures and that time, Oriole or her upper student Robin were temporary replacements).

He took his son to Vermillion City when he was seven-or-eight, riding in front of him on his Skarmory, with one protective arm wrapped around him. "Mathias!" he cried upon landing; a giant of a blond man was waiting, and Falkner's first impression of those from the Kanto East was that it had to be full of similar giants. The Raichu at his side was around Falkner's own height, _huge_ in comparison to what Falkner was used to.

Falkner practically fit in the palm of his hand, or so he imagined; Surge had to kneel down to place a hand atop his head. "Your father likes talking about you-"

"Oh, Mathias," Wren snorted.

"He says you're going to grow up and be the man who takes out all my partners." Raichu's long tail pounded the ground, a display of its physical power. Surge was grinning. "Will you?"

Falkner squared his jaw, like any child would when they're convictions on the line. "I'm going to be the flying trainer who beats all electric-types in the world!"

Surge barked. "I'd like to see you try, little man." Then the giant ruffled his hair and Falkner squawked with indignation, glaring up at him. Surge remained amused. "I'd love to have him under my apprenticeship, Wren."

"Of course. I'll just ask Orli if I can give away her favorite child and she'll be happy to, I think not."

"He was born under the wrong sign, then." Surge put a finger between Falkner's eyes, just shy of touching skin. Falkner crossed his eyes to see it. "Yer kid's got the wrong energy for this. Lightning and fire boil in this one's veins. You tell that to her, and see what she says."

"'Oafs don't know what they're talking about.' I guarantee it'll be something of like that. In fancier speech."

The child scowled, not from a lack of understanding what they were talking about, but from a general sense. Surge laughed and put himself to his full height again. Falkner came up to the poor man's knee. "Is everybody here as big as you," he demanded abruptly.

Wren barked. Falkner suddenly found himself a little too far off the ground, six feet or so, and set upon a rocky shoulder. "Kid," Surge said, "_no one_ is as big as I am."

Falkner never had a problem with heights; he was practically born higher in the air than anyone could be. Being handled so, and not by his father, was a different experience. He marveled at the distance between his dangling feet to the ground. "Well, I am," the child said confidently. "I'm gonna be taller than you. Right, Dad?"

Wren was never more skeptical than now. "If you get taller than me, it would be a miracle."

The boy's face scrunched. Surge laughed his own. The kid was definitely, in Surge's opinion, born under the wrong sign. Fate sucked.


	25. Bugsy

**Edition**: Regional Boys (seventh set)  
- _Set #_: 2  
**Character**: Bugsy  
- _Pairing_: Earlyshipping  
- _Universe_: none**  
Rating**: E (Everyone)  
- _Warnings_: none

- i - k - u - z - o -

"I like you. I want you to be my boyfriend."

Falkner was screaming somewhere in his mind, at the same time fighting the horror from blooming on his face. The boy standing before him was _serious_, with all the unashamed bluntness only a child of his age could manage.

"You're eleven."

"And I'm a Gym Leader. That practically makes me an adult."

"Go ask your father what makes you an adult."

Bugsy puffed his chest up, which was almost comical. "He already said I was grown up."

Twitch. "You didn't ask him if it was all right for you to start dating older people, did you."

"Details, details! Be my boyfriend."

"I'm not dating someone half my age and half my size." There, a deterrent.

"I don't want to date. I just want you to say you'll be my boyfriend, so you can't be with anyone else, and when I'm sixteen, we can date and get married and have sex--"

That was where Falkner stopped listening and started crying instead of screaming.


	26. Wallace

**Edition**: Regional Boys (seventh set)  
- _Set #_: 2  
**Character**: Wallace  
- _Pairing_: Fledglingshipping  
- _Universe_: none**  
Rating**: MA (Mature Audiences)  
- _Warnings_: **non-graphic sex**

- i - k - u - z - o -

When out on the ocean, one had to compensate for the waves, the bobbing of the water that either carried or sank its victims. Out in open waters was a dangerous venture compared to the relative safety of lakes. They still had their perils, but in the larger picture, the salt water will kill you faster than the fresh water will.

Falkner was already drowning.

It was the hand at his neck, the lips on his mouth, the body over his, the thighs between his legs. It encompassed him, engulfed him, the pretty, salty blue of the oceans. Where Wallace was gentle, the rocking of the waves carried him just beneath the surface. And where he was not gentle, the crashing of the waves grabbed him around the middle and sank him faster toward the deep, deep blue of the sandy boneyard.

He was always brought back up again, with arms around his shoulders to be held close with. The fact Wallace tended to be winded from their exertions made Falkner think he wasn't the only one fighting to break the surface. That the water always claimed them both.


	27. Ashachu

**Edition**: Electric (third set)  
- _Set #_: 1  
**Character**: "Ashachu"  
- _Pairing_: Hypocriteshipping  
- _Universe_: none**  
Rating**: E (Everyone)  
- _Warnings_: none

- i - k - u - z - o -

They _assure_ him this has happened before. Falkner is not convinced. They _say_ it will wear off. Falkner is still not convinced. But nevertheless, it is ragingly obvious he cannot deny what is right in front of him: his young lover is a Pikachu. Wearing a hat.

Going out with the tiny creature on his shoulder is a hassle. Never mind his image as a bird trainer with a deeply-seeded bias against electric-types, Ash quickly grows into the habit of cuddling into his face and rubbing cheeks like an affectionate Meowth. What Falkner _is_ convinced of is that inside that form, Ash is laughing at him for being a stingy miser of a man. Except Falkner has weaknesses, and Ash is one of them, so this Pikachu body of his will exploit that as openly as possible.

Falkner will want to have words with the boy _if_ he returns to normal, but knows perfectly well Ash will simply plant a kiss to his lips, and that will be that.


	28. Cresselia

**Edition**: Regional Girls (fifth set)  
- _Set #_: 4  
**Character**: Cresselia  
- _Pairing_: IllMetByshipping  
- _Universe_: Psychic Fabric**  
Rating**: E (Everyone)  
- _Warnings_: none

- i - k - u - z - o -

When the creature returned in the dead of night, Falkner was ready to protect Max from her siren call once again. He left his bed, threw on a shirt, grabbed his belt, and snuck out the window of the PokéCenter for a direct confrontation; if he had gone around to the front, Max and the others would be vulnerable to her.

"You cannot have the boy."

_"He burns with the psychic touch tii seek in humans."_

"I will defeat you again."

_"Kai was not defeated."_

"You ran."

_"Because you also burn."_

Falkner's mind jumped to fire, and given the situation of enemies, the roulette landed first on Ho-oh, as a fire she might be implying. His hackles raised in fury and would have lashed out. Would, but couldn't, because her eyes glowed, and he could no longer move.

_"You burn not in min power, but in min light, sun-drinker. You are touched by the moon's pull; you are affected by it. Lugia once had you, did zhei not?"_

Memories sprang afresh from his encounter with Lugia. His god had been awesome and awe-inspiring until the moment it needed a vessel, an avatar. And what better than its own priest--

_"If you will not permit shi the young-one, please allow shi you."_

"At least you're asking," he growled.

_"Kai asked the young-one. He said, 'Yes.'"_

"You bespelled him and gave him no choice!"

_"Will you be mione or not?"_

"Never."

_"That is too bad."_ She drew closer, and touched his face with a paw. He ignored the forlorn in her voice. _"Kai could love to live with you, brave sun-drinker."_


	29. Barry

**Edition**: "I can piss you off, too" (sixth set)  
- _Set #_: 5  
**Character**: Barry  
- _Pairing_: Aquilashipping  
- _Universe_: none**  
Rating**: E (Everyone)  
- _Warnings_: exactly what it says on the tin

- i - k - u - z - o -

"There's a troll. In my garden."


	30. Jasmine

**Edition**: Regional Girls (fifth set)  
- _Set #_: 2  
**Character**: Jasmine  
- _Pairing_: SteelWingshipping  
- _Universe_: none**  
Rating**: E (Everyone)  
- _Warnings_: none

- i - k - u - z - o -

In nature, steel-types kept themselves to shine in various ways: Forretress 'Spun themselves into dead leaves on the woodland floor, Steelix burrowed itself through the earth and let the dirt do the work for them, Bronzong reportedly held themselves under waterfalls, and so on.

Skarmory were a naturally unique case. They took to the skies and dove through thickened clouds, their bodies condescending with the moisture and let the freefall speed do its work. Loop-de-loop, they went. But trainers tended to use another method.

Water, soap, and a specially developed wax that was League certified to not hinder or amplify a steel-types natural powers and weaknesses, was all a trainer needed. If they had time. And help.

Jasmine's was due, and all she needed to do to convince Falkner was smile like a gentle ray of sunshine and ask if it wasn't too much trouble. Because her Skarmory was unfortunately very large and very particular: it wasn't partial to a half-done job; it liked the full works. And that could take hours.

She was in an old shirt covered in paint stains, modest shorts, a bandanna for her hair, and sandals. He wore little more than a pair of old jeans, bare toes curling in the grass as they worked. Jasmine didn't trust him with the hose; Falkner asked who did she think he was, honestly?

She should have trusted her instincts.


	31. Harley

**Edition**: "I can piss you off, too" (sixth set)  
- _Set #_: 4  
**Character**: Harley  
- _Pairing_: Harlequinshipping  
- _Universe_: none**  
Rating**: E (Everyone)  
- _Warnings_: none

- i - k - u - z - o -

He was pretty sure he had been set up.

One dreary winter afternoon, Jasmine invited him out for tea. Tea was good, tea was soothing, tea in the proper company could make him forget his recent break-up. And tea was going fine, on the enclosed glass patio of a restaurant Jasmine liked venturing to when she was skirting the edge of Goldenrod. Until the company was crashed.

The man was obviously attractive, worked on being attractive, but wasn't attractive enough to make his mouth anything but obnoxious. He knew Jasmine, he battled Jasmine on stage, and he talked, and talked, and talked, and Jasmine humored him politely.

Then the man had turned to him. "I'm sorry. I'm so rude. Harley."

The seamless shift in the direction of the conversational focus was so abrupt, he almost didn't answer. "Falkner."

"Oh, Violet City's little pride and joy, just like my Jasmine? Forgive me for asking but I can see why Jasmine would be here, so why you?"

He had helplessly turned to her, somewhat spooked silent by the nonthreatening aggressiveness of Harley's choice manners. Recalling it later, he was pretty sure she was holding back a giggle. "Just a meeting between friends."

Then suddenly, Harley was talking to him and not talking at her. Opinions on Contests, do birds smell, was he married, do flying-types really have what it takes to overcome electricity, was he taken, did he want to battle some time, did he like ghosts (kind of), cacti (they were alright), octopi (raw?), did he want to go out sometime--

That's when Falkner noticed Jasmine had slipped away to the bar.

And Harley was all clever smiles.


	32. Jackie Walker

**Edition**: High-Flyer (fourth set)  
- _Set #_: 5  
**Character**: Jackie Walker  
- _Pairing_: SunShadowshipping  
- _Universe_: none**  
Rating**: MA (Mature Audiences)  
- _Warnings_: **non-graphic dubious-consensualism **

- i - k - u - z - o -

For the most part, Jackie had some crazy ideas, and Falkner secretly liked them. Sex in beds, sex on couches, sex in water, sex in the woods, sex in towel closets, sex in dark alleys, sex in dark alleys during the daytime, sex in bathroom stalls, sex on the Gym floor as close to the sky as possible.

There were only two times he didn't cave to Jackie's pestering: sex in Lugia's shrine room (Falkner was damn sure he was kidding) and sex while on Pidgeot's back (Falkner was pretty sure he was not kidding). So when Jackie asked for a ride to Olivine City to catch a Fiore-bound boat, Falkner made sure to coerce him in the aviary before they left, in a nook where their birds couldn't see, to hopefully distract his mind from jumping him in midair, and took Skarmory instead.

It worked two-thirds of the way there, until a hand slipped down his pants and a mouth latched onto the side of his throat. When they landed, Falkner had no trouble letting Jackie know what he thought of the experience: he socked him in the face.

Jackie's apologies were quick and likely honest, but Falkner was more annoyed that the blow didn't seem to phase him much, the way he didn't keep his distance.

"You'd really think I'd do something like that to Pidgeot?"

"You clearly had no problems when it was Skarmory!"

"You don't use Skarmory."

"Living creature! All the same! God, if she realized what you did--"

"I asked her if it was okay, you know."

"....What."

"While you were getting treats, I did the polite thing and got her permission."

Falkner gaped. Jackie smiled sunnily. With a splutter of how he didn't want to know and red up to his ears, he made his farewells quick. Except Falkner buckled and questioned Skarmory himself when they returned to Violet. It ended with her managing to intone if it felt good, and Falkner really didn't want to know the rest.

Falkner called Jackie that night. "You're a moron, you know."

"A moron who knows what to make a one-time deal. I got you to orgasm in open air and see it with my own eyes; what more could I ask for?"

Falkner blushed. "Shut up. ...Sorry about punching you."

"Ah, it's already starting to bruise. Solana's gonna be even more curious now. ...I did deserve it, though. Now, with that out of the way, about the shrine room--"

Falkner hung up.


	33. Zackie

**Edition**: Babysitter (tenth set)  
- _Set #_: 1  
**Character**: Zackie  
- _Pairing_: Underwingshipping  
- _Universe_: Psychic Fabric**  
Rating**: E (Everyone)  
- _Warnings_: none

- i - k - u - z - o -

The boy was like a thorn in his side.

_Battle me!_ this and _I'll beat you!_ that, on an on, every time they crossed paths. The boy even went so far as to stalk at the gym every chance he could manage, leaving Falkner to either cart him back to his frantic mother with his sincerest apologies, or to force him in a corner until lessons or battling were over, with a brief phone assuring his mother that the boy was fine and she could either pick him up, or Falkner could accommodate him and drop him off later.

She usually got him herself, apologizing profusely, with Zackie arguing the entire time that he wanted to stay and watch.

But today was June 1st. The boy was ten, and already owned his beloved Bellsprout and could not receive a starter (which meant: he didn't have to go to Newbark to choose one, which would have bought Falkner time). Because he woke up with a headache, knowing what today was threatening to bring him: an anvil-sized migraine named Zackie.

Drop by Zackie did, Bellsprout wobbling beside him. His face was flush, his expression determined, and his fists were clenched by his side. Falkner fought to maintain his professionalism; for all the training the boy did, for all the studies he endured, there was no way he was ready. Type-casting sucked, but Falkner knew he couldn't have owned anything but Bellsprout.

It wouldn't be a fair fight--

"Please teach me!"

Silence.

"What the hell is that?!" Falkner snapped, veins suddenly rushing to burst. "The last _three years_ you've bothered me and hounded me and made all sorts of threats and promises, and now you're--..." He stopped to push at the bridge of his nose. "Brat."

Zackie turned even redder, body trembling with the flight response, but admirably, he held his ground. Falkner could see from just this it was something he wanted. "You're the one I want to teach and train me!" Zackie cried. "What do you think I wanted from you all that time??"

Falkner looked at him with annoyance. Somewhere trapped inside this ten year old was the seven year old who tried to pick fights with him, and swearing Bellsprout was strong enough to K.O. his beloved Pidgeot with one blow. Underneath this brand new exterior, that lay hidden. But if Zackie's exterior was bound to become his eventual interior....

Falkner closed the distance between them in six dreadful steps, and he dropped to one knee before him. "I don't have time to waste on those who won't do the work," he told him, gravely. "All our students work hard, and shed blood, sweat, and tears to master the training here. Do you want that?"

Zackie eyed him, equally mystified and looking for tricks. When he apparently found none, Zackie threw his arms around Falkner neck and hugged him in gratitude. "I'll work hard, I promise! I'll eat my vegetables, I'll brush my teeth, and I'll be strong!"

Falkner sighed silently, and patted the back of the boy's head. Is this what it's like to have kids?

"...Were you serious about the blood...?"


	34. Max

**Edition**: Babysitter (tenth set)  
- _Set #_: 2  
**Character**: Max  
- _Pairing_: Coattailshipping  
- _Universe_: Psychic Fabric**  
Rating**: E (Everyone)  
- _Warnings_: none

- i - k - u - z - o -

"It's me, isn't it?"

Falkner shook his head. "We won't know for sure-"

"How can it not?"

The priest felt respectably quiet as Max fought to hold back his tears. He didn't want to analyze his present with his past, didn't want to believe the cause of all their troubles were himself. But it had to be true; these coincidences didn't add up unless... "Before I was licensed, when I was running around with my friends, we...we wound up Forina."

And he choked out the entire story, each encounter to the minutest detail he could scrounge up: Jirachi, both his Ralts, Deoxys, and even Shuppet to a degree. "All that psychic power that chose _me_!" he concluded. "Why would it if I'm not what Lugia was talking about?"

"Affinity." In the evening, Falkner's visible eye was sharp. "Most trainers go through life with a wide variety of partners on their team. But people like Gym Leaders have what's called 'affinity' for a specific type. This doesn't have anything to do with ability though. Granted, I can't think of any examples of primarily psychic-type users who don't have a touch of ESP in them, but that's not saying they don't exist." He paused. "Max. They found you, not the other way around. Whatever Lugia fears, it's not your fault."

"But..." The silver knife flashed before his eyes in memory, aimed at him, aimed at Zackie, aimed at whoever it must that terrifies them-

"The world hasn't ended because you connected with two legendaries." The grass rustled gently under Falkner's footsteps. "If Lugia is afraid of what you can do, or what they think you will do, you have evidence to the contrary. And when it comes to any trouble you might find yourself in, it's not like you'll be alone." A hand fell on Max's head. "Right?"

Max dropped his chin, but he was pretty sure hiding his crying was impossible. Fingers curled into his hair, soothing, like his mother used to do. "C'mon, I hear your last defense crying out for their dinner. Marnie won't pacify them for long."

The boy drew in a deep, shaky breath. "Thank you..."

"It's not like I'm telling you anything you didn't already know in your heart. Your friends are your blood."

As Falkner made to pass him by, Max's hands fly out instinctively to grasp at the back of his shirt. Falkner stilled, and Max buried his face in the cloth. "Ummm," he started, "can we wait another minute?"

The pause was pregnant, but the allowance he heard was unmistakable. "Whatever you need, Max. Whatever you need."


	35. Ryan

**Edition**: Babysitter (tenth set)  
- _Set #_: 3  
**Character**: Ryan  
- _Pairing_: AtOddsshipping  
- _Universe_: Psychic Fabric**  
Rating**: E (Everyone)  
- _Warnings_: **underlying incest  
****Note**: Ryan and Bryan are twins from the Sinnoh region; my fanon is they are related (half-brothers)

- i - k - u - z - o -

Ryan wildly swung his fists and plowed forward, only to be held at bay by the hand he hated. "You jerk, you loser, you pig!"

Falkner watched him dispassionately, with a revolting air of superiority, and it drove Ryan to fight harder. "You're not better than me! You're ugly, you're a freak, you're weak, you're stupid and butt-ugly and stupid! You're not my brother! You're a liar and stupid and weak and blind and dumb! You wouldn't know skill until it broke your nose! You don't have any talent, you're stupid, you cheat, and you're unfair!"

Falkner wasn't giving an inch, leaving Ryan little more than to stew in his own rage. Tears had welled, his eyes burning with the salt. They wet his face when he wasn't looking, and tried in vain to pretend they weren't there.

"Why are you trying to take Bryan away from me?!"

"You have a goal," Falkner told him, gruff and neutral. "Your brother piggybacks off it. With all the times you fight alongside each other, you're not the least bit interested in fighting against him?"

"Who wants to do that?!"

"Then _come for me_."

Ryan froze, glaring his heart into blackness to make up for the hate he wasn't pounding into Falkner's flesh.

"You want to be a master? A great trainer, an elite?! Then _fight_ for it. I want your brother to replace me as the Violet Gym Leader. And when that's done, I will not fight you. Hurry and reach your dream before beating me becomes impossible. Hate me, Ryan.

"Hate me like you love me."


	36. Bryan

**Edition**: Babysitter (tenth set)  
- _Set #_: 4  
**Character**: Bryan  
- _Pairing_: AllOddsshipping  
- _Universe_: Psychic Fabric**  
Rating**: E (Everyone)  
- _Warnings_: **underlying incest  
****Note**: Ryan and Bryan are twins from the Sinnoh region; my fanon is they are related (half-brothers)

- i - k - u - z - o -

"You remind me a lot of Corey."

"Is...it okay to be talking about this?"

"I can't change your relation to me any more than I can change my relation to our father. I'm telling you anyway."

"Well, um, what's he like?"

"Reckless, busy, haughty, troublesome, arrogant..."

"...."

"Those aren't anything I would call you."

"Then why did you say I remind you of him?"

"Because both of you are willing to trust me."


	37. Marnie

**Edition**: Babysitter (tenth set)  
- _Set #_: 5  
**Character**: Marnie  
- _Pairing_: OntheWindshipping  
- _Universe_: Psychic Fabric**  
Rating**: E (Everyone)  
- _Warnings_: none

- i - k - u - z - o -

She grew into the splitting image of her mother, as everyone knew she would. The old houses of Joi and Junsa--now Joy and Jenny--were known for being genetically predisposed to its female descendants. Marnie would be no different.

At sixteen, she was already a traveling nurse, with her Togetic, Altaria, and three Drifblim at her side. She didn't regret leaving home, or that Paige decided she would assist and someday replace Mama Joy in Sinnoh. This gave her all the freedom she wanted.

Except it really wasn't freedom, what it? Johto called to her like a song in the night, an irresistible beacon. This is where the North Wind herald, where some of her friends chose to remain, and were _he_ always would be.

Visiting Falkner was easy; it was staying in his company that was difficult. Never mind he was constantly at Bryan's side, coaching him to be the next Leader, it was because....

Five years had made Bryan look like Falkner, and Falkner more like his father: sharp angles in the face and eyes. If she hadn't known either, she might have mistaken one for another, except Bryan still had his hair short and Falkner with one long bang. But that wasn't it. It was because....

"Have you," she asked tentatively, two nights after she arrived, "thought about who would bear your heirs?"

It had cropped up twice that she knew about, during their journey. And now that she was older, she could talk about it, without it sounding inappropriate or out-of-line.

"There are candidates," he said simply.

"That all?"

"Why?" he asked, with a wry grin. "You interested?"

"Maybe," she said, trying to play cool and nonchalant. "Don't know who else I'm competing against, but it's not like you can go wrong. Male, and it's perfect. A girl, and you're the father of a Joy. She'll become a nurse somewhere where one is needed...you'll be helping someone's cause either way."

"Why would you bother?"

She thinned her lips, and lifted her chin as he directed, his finger coasting up her throat and just under her mouth. Her cheeks flushed in reaction, a gentle touch that would be no more if he rejected the offer.

"Don't think I didn't notice your crush, Marnie. It's okay."

Her face blushed harder, darker. It wasn't like she had _hid_ her fawning; Max pointed out she was being obvious (it creeped him out some), but didn't think.... She surged up, enfolding both hands across his cheeks, to touch him, to hold him as she let her lips find his own.

She nearly cried in relief when his hands found her waist.


	38. Skarmory

**Edition**: "Abby Normal" (ninth set)  
- _Set #_: 3  
**Character**: Skarmory  
- _Pairing_: Armorshipping  
- _Universe_: none**  
Rating**: E (Everyone)  
- _Warnings_: none

- i - k - u - z - o -

Skarmory had shed two large pinions and dutifully brought them to her master. She liked watching how he went about fashioning them into his boomerangs, both the ones he would attach to his pokéballs and the personal weapons that could fell small trees under his own strength.

With his back to her, he set to work with a special stone, a whet stone, that he ran along the pre-made edges that made this work easier; the pleasant scraping sound ringing from the feather's body was nostalgic for her, and she liked it when he did it. Liked making parts of her into tools instead of waste. It made her feel good (and a little more useful than his beloved Pidgeot; how wonderful was that?).

She always felt happy on these days. So happy....

As the stone was put aside, she craned her neck as silently as possible and tapped his shoulder with her beak. As he looked over his right shoulder, she leaped to the left; she'd seen children play such tricks, and it worked on grown-ups too, it seemed.

He was grinning when he looked to the left, a knowing smile. "Are you being cheeky?"

Skarmory cawed, shifting her weight from foot to foot, her wings ruffling. _Send me_, her body read.

He grabbed an already experienced giant boomerang.

_Send me up_, her body read.

He hefted up over his shoulder.

_Send me up to the sky!_

"Fetch!"


	39. Reggie

**Edition**: High-Flyer (fourth set)  
- _Set #_: 4  
**Character**: Reggie  
- _Pairing_: Cruxshipping  
- _Universe_: none**  
Rating**: E (Everyone)  
- _Warnings_: none

- i - k - u - z - o -

"I don't usually do things half-way," Reggie said in way of reason as to why he was in Violet City personally instead of sending the pokéball electronically.

Which Falkner hardly minded, though he got the impression that wasn't how transactions usually went with him. Reggie was better looking in person, anyway; no video calls captured the finesse the Sinnoh-native had in the full body.

The male Starly which Reggie came to deliver now sat regally on Falkner's bracer, its chest puffed and its countenance only just satisfied with its new ownership.

"It knows Brave Bird, Foresight, Heatwave, and FeatherDance. It's also in good condition to learn competitively. But its personality..."

"I've trained similar types before. A bird with an ego is nothing new, especially from one that's so tiny." Falkner smiled at the man. "I appreciate the extensive effort, Reggie. I still can't thank you enough."

"Hardly any trouble; a tutor I knew owed me a favor, anyway."

The Starly was recalled and notched into Falkner's belt. "Are you going to catch a nightliner back?"

"I figured I'd stay the night before heading back. It's been a while since I've been in Johto." Then his expression turned sly. "I remember you when you were younger. I battled your father for the Zephyr badge, and you were sitting on the sidelines watching us. Imagine my surprise when you of all people call me up with your request."

Internally, Falkner floundered a little in awkwardness. What did one say to that? "...You want to get some dinner?"

Reggie laughed comfortably. "I thought you'd never ask."


	40. Pidgeot

**Edition**: OTP (eighth set)  
- _Set #_: 5  
**Character**: Pidgeot  
- _Pairing_: Glidershipping  
- _Universe_: Before Elitism**  
Rating**: E (Everyone)  
- _Warnings_: none

- i - k - u - z - o -

The nature of pokémon evolution was a miraculous process that no ordinary person really thought about. They believed it just happened, with time or with experience, and believe it to be a sign of improvement.

Electricity racing through the body generally wasn't considered 'an improvement'. There had been no room to shout; the enemy Magneton had already charged and unleashed the Thunderbolt attack. Instinct carried him forward, fear and panic flooding him to _protect_ his Pidgeotto.

His opponent was playing dirty; it wasn't like Falkner had been playing strictly honorable either, but there was a line tournaments didn't allow to be crossed: if a pokémon is struggling to get back to its feet, the opponent must back off and allow nature its due course. It is _not_ allowed to issue an attack during that time.

Pidgeotto wasn't in a stable-enough condition to withstand the attack; unconsciousness was the luckiest, and kindest, result that could happen. But Magneton was strong. There wasn't enough luck in the world--

He was screaming; he had to be. In all that noise, in all that ringing, his screams had to be somewhere among the tumult. But even through the pain, the anguish, and fright of believing _he_ could die instead--

It stopped, days of recovery compressed into ten seconds of nerve-frying, constant lightning. He felt like he couldn't breathe, that his diaphragm paralyzed, that every muscle was suffocating him with their spasms... Falkner looked down at Pidgeotto—

—it stared back at him, covered in dirt and dust, feathers charred from earlier, but untouched by the coward's lethal tricks—

—and _smiled_.

"You're okay," he wanted to say. "I'm so glad." But words churned in his throat, unwilling to be coughed up. He choked and gagged, and clenched his eyes shut at the radiant light beneath him. His limbs weren't cooperating, unable to move from his on-all-fours position, until his body glided upwards into a sitting position by the softest, purest down of a growing, glowing shape.

The glow snapped away into a million points of light with the sharp unfurling of brand new wings, and Pidgeot's countenance was just as fierce as it had always been.

Except it wasn't pointed his way, this time.

This wasn't time at work, or experience, or even a need to evolve. It had been a want, a desire. The fact Pidgeot had evolved _for him_ was heart-stopping. Watching it tear their opponents to pieces, over the roar of horror from the crowd, judge, and announcers, only made it better.

Needless to say, both trainers were disqualified.


	41. Latios

**Edition**: Regional Boys (seventh set)  
- _Set #_: 5  
**Character**: Latios  
- _Pairing_: Obscurashipping  
- _Universe_: Psychic Fabric**  
Rating**: E (Everyone)  
- _Warnings_: none

- i - k - u - z - o -

Lugia's harbingers hid themselves all over the world. It was its messengers that hid themselves in plain view. The day Latios accosted Falkner some lazy, hazy summer night was one of the few times Falkner momentarily lost his composure (forced out of his zen state, as he claimed, was just his way of not saying, "I was scared witless").

Latios' invisibility fell off like a soft cloak, and Falkner—despite his recent bad brush with the tidal god—knew enough to formally respect the messenger.

_"May Lord seeks your forgiveness."_

Falkner locked his jaw to keep from telling the last Eon that what his "Lord" tried to do nearly killed his charges, the sleeping children at his feet, for no reason foreseeable or answered. "It won't be forgiven by me."

_"Zhei said as much. Zhei **begs** your forgiveness."_

"If this is about being its priest, it has nothing to worry about; I'll continue teaching the practices, in addition to--"

_"One of your children frightens may Lord."_

Falkner paused, and looked to the sleeping lumps quizzically. The twins, Ryan and Bryan, Max, and Paige. There was no way one of the bumpkins was capable of scaring a god. A Rattata may as well scare a Tyranitar. "Oh yeah?" he asked defiantly. "Which one?"

_"Tii are not sure. One resonates with great psychic energies that blanket a great radius. May Lord cannot discern the one who does, but others will. Others that will flock to one of the children, harming the cosmic balance."_

Falkner glared. "Get away from us. If I even think we're being tailed by one of your kind, I'll be the one harming your cosmic balance."

_"Kai would not want that, but zhei needs to know which one it is. If kai cannot secretly tail you, kai will openly join you."_

"No."

_"Yes,"_ he said, floating delicately around Falkner's body; enticingly or threateningly, Falkner wasn't sure. He kept his Pokéballs, and his fists, to himself. _"Capture shi."_

The priest's jaw dropped. "No!" he hissed.

Latios pressed the tip of its muzzle to Falkner's nose, forcing him back and down. _"Kai will be at your side, whether or not you approve. Now capture shi or kai will have to be drastic. May Lord will not allow the child to roam unsupervised."_

"Does Lugia not trust me?!" Falkner seethed. "It dares to think I would willingly be its vessel, and now it thinks I'm not capable of protecting these damn kids from whatever 'world-threatening' that's bound to happen? Go tell your master humans have done their fare-share of crisis-averting, and if he thinks I'll cooperate with it after what it did to me, then its going to have to learn it the hard way. We'll solve our problems on our own, thank you very much."

Latios' eyes narrowed and he spun away from the unwanting charge. _"Psychic types will be naturally drawn to the child, Falkner Hayabusan. Kai am a psychic type. Kai does not intend on defying may Lord's wishes if one of your children is going to destroy us, lure zheise loyalists away with some irresistible draw when the time comes. It likely has already caused irreversible damage already, unknowingly. Kai do not want to be stolen away, so capture shi."_

Falkner shook his head. "I don't want you," he said. "Like I didn't want to be a vessel. Lugia broke the rules of permission: there is no forcing of partners between humans and pokémon. Natural law demands mutuality. No human will partner with a pokémon it does not want, and no pokémon will accept a human it does not care for. And I doubt you'll ask the same of the kids if there's even the slightest chance you'll end up with the one you're so worried about. Leave."

Latios was silent while the night music played around them, filling the eerie gap Latios left with his unnerving, unreadable face.

_"Kai see why may Lord likes you."_ And he flew off, back to his master, disappearing as suddenly as he presented himself.

Falkner sniffed and laid back down, not that he'd get anymore sleep. His night was shot, now that he had further problems to concern himself with, and more so had to keep an eye out for more agents who might do actual harm. _Morty's going to laugh at me, with all this crap,_ he thought miserably, and wondered if he'd made a grave mistake not doing as the Eon messenger suggested.

Capturing a Latios though? His mother would make him commit ritual suicide.

But he was sort of pretty.


	42. Latias

**Edition**: Regional Girls (fifth set)  
- _Set #_: 5  
**Character**: Latias  
- _Pairing_: Luminashipping  
- _Universe_: none**  
Rating**: E (Everyone)  
- _Warnings_: none

- i - k - u - z - o -

In the distant future, Falkner would some day get the travel bug that infected his father. When he does, he would up-root himself without notice and fly as far as he would want.

He would be older, wiser, and being pressured for heirs to the point where the elevated skies would become the fresh air he needs.

He would fly over the city of Alto Mare and admire the lore of great dragon guardians in passing, the stories he had years ago read in books.

As he is flying, he will come upon a presence that neither him nor his Pidgeot is quite sure exists. They will race across the skies above the city, or perhaps they will dance toward the blue of heaven and sea, but they will find each other.

And when she shows herself secretly to him, he will love her for her splendor and her spirit.


	43. his father

**Edition**: High-Flyer (fourth set)  
- _Set #_: 3  
**Character**: Falkner's father  
- _Pairing_: Zephyrshipping  
- _Universe_: none**  
Rating**: T (Teen)  
- _Warnings_: **incest  
Note**: Pokémon Special calls him Hayate, Pokémon Adventures calls him Wayne; I just call him Wren.

- i - k - u - z - o -

When Falkner was younger, Daddy sometimes slipped into his room and curled up next to him on the futon. On those mornings, Falkner learned quickly that the kind of fight he and Mommy had were always over Falkner himself: Oriole accuses Wren of being a lowlife role model for their son, and Wren tries to express what he's doing by leaving the boy, and also her. Except the latter half he didn't find out until much later, when Wren's trips away drew longer and longer, and he all but stopped coming to Falkner's room.

"She hates me as much as she loves me," Wren told him honestly, when Falkner was older. "And in the end, she's always afraid I'll bring some part of Ecruteak City back with me. Or what she'd classify as being related to Ecruteak."

"Do you love her?" Falkner asked.

"Every time I look at your mother, I see the same beautiful girl I fell in the dirt in front of. I told her first thing it was 'destiny' that tripped me into her arms, and my heart always pounds when I'm around her. Even today it did."

"She was going to rip you in half."

Wren smiled wistfully. "All apart of her charms."

"Then why do you leave?"

Pause.

"I didn't leave because of her."

The kiss Wren pulled Falkner into was quick and chaster than a child's imitation of an adult, but every fiber in his brain was recognizing what the meaning behind it was and screaming for him to pull away. In reflex, Falkner jerked back, a hand flying up to protect his mouth and Heaven knew what was in his eyes.

"Look," Wren sadly said. "I just brought back something from Ecruteak."


	44. Zapdos

**Edition**: Electric (third set)  
- _Set #_: 5  
**Character**: Zapdos  
- _Pairing_: Voltaicshipping  
- _Universe_: none**  
Rating**: E (Everyone)  
- _Warnings_: none

- i - k - u - z - o -

He was drilled with the understanding that the three titans were creatures of majesty and might, a worldly balance kept in check by Lugia's grand presence. But the first time he saw a Zapdos, Falkner hadn't slept at all that night, his mind a-whirl with how they could worship an electric-type that screamed like a nightmare.

He went from child to teenager before he was face-to-face with another Zapdos. Now the scars on his face burned, picturing how similar it and a Fearow are. He repressed the desire to unclip his Pidgeot from his belt and prove to himself what it meant to be a god, but he didn't. The Zapdos ignored him the entire time.

He skipped into adulthood when he met a Zapdos for the third time, wounded someways north of the city. He wanted--so much--to let it suffer into death, but that was only after he had taken out his PokéGear and radioed the local Rangers and nearest Nurse Joy. It wanted up, it wanted away from humans, but Falkner drowned into the carpet of dead leaves, nuts, and grass beside its head and he did his finest to keep it calm.

It was still a god, after all.


	45. Drew

**Edition**: "I can piss you off, too" (sixth set)  
- _Set #_: 3  
**Character**: Drew  
- _Pairing_: Dawnshipping  
- _Universe_: none**  
Rating**: E (Everyone)  
- _Warnings_: none

- i - k - u - z - o -

Contests weren't his thing, for one part. He'd rather be facing down the bratlings at the academy than take time out of his day to watch a competition that doesn't affect him or his position. But when one was scheduled to be held in his city, Falkner felt obliged to close his gym for the day, if it meant promoting one of the few competitive alternates to challenging the League...especially since Nurse Joy asked him politely if he could do so (the promoting, not the gym-closing), as well as come and watch.

That put him in civvies walking down the sidewalk to their great hall. Until he was ambushed by Johto's Contest MC, Adrian, just outside, and was hauled away to a side entrance. Lovely girl, really, but didn't have as much professional tact like her cousins and sister. Escaping her took actual tact, with wonderings if the competitors were as crazy as her, and got himself a front-row seat.

It wasn't long before someone sat in the seat beside him. "Not many Gym Leaders seem to find their way into Contest audiences," the stranger casually remarked. Falkner glanced at him: green hair, green eyes, and proud for such a young person. "They're either in them or don't bother with them."

"Are you looking for a gym battle?" he asked, because he didn't look like a Chatty Delcatty by nature. Getting to the point was only practical.

"Not really," said the boy, and flicked open his Case-of-choice. Five small ribbons sat against the soft lining.

"So you've a ticket to the Grand Festival, making your intentions now...what?"

"Just what I said: you don't find Gym Leaders in Contest audiences."

Falkner recalled Whitney once talking to him about wanting to watch a live Contest, but she never made it in time because she still got lost around the city. So she remorsefully continues to watch them on TV. He doubted any of the others held an interest, beside their only dual-Trainer, Jasmine. "So why are you here, then? You're not competition-scoping; you likely know everyone participating."

"I'm watching someone."

"Relative or girlfriend?"

The boy's eyes glittered sharply. "Friend. Who is a girl."

"She dumped you."

"For a girl in Sinnoh."

He laughed. Internally. He knew how _that_ felt; you don't laugh at it, ever. Outside, he was sympathetic. "I'd offer you a drink, but you're what, five years too young?"

"Three. I'm thirteen."

"Then I owe you a drink in three years."


	46. Clair

**Edition**: OTP (eighth set)  
- _Set #_: 3  
**Character**: Clair  
- _Pairing_: Wingshipping  
- _Universe_: none**  
Rating**: E (Everyone)  
- _Warnings_: none

- i - k - u - z - o -

"Even sticks in the mud come loose and undone."

He stared sourly at her, regretting this every step she made him take.

"You knew this would happen," she said.

"But it doesn't have to happen."

"Yes it does."

"No, it doesn't."

"I'm beginning to think you're not as innocent as you claim. Have you done this before?"

"Why would I want to involve anyone beyond my immediate family for something so intimate?"

"It's going to be a quiet affair."

"Knowing what I'm walking into, 'quiet' is not my definition of this 'affair'."

Clair smiled.

"The bigger it is, the worse it'll be," he said.

"With the way you're hesitating over the matter, I'm counting on it."

"Do I want to know why?"

"So I can ride your ass for it later."

She kissed him—she was amused that despite his mulishness, Falkner wasn't above being inaccessible; he had kissed back—and opened a door.

"Swallow it, now. It's time for you to meet my parents."


	47. Rayquaza

**Edition**: "Abby Normal" (ninth set)  
- _Set #_: 5  
**Character**: Rayquaza  
- _Pairing_: Xoanonshipping  
- _Universe_: none**  
Rating**: E (Everyone)  
- _Warnings_: none

- i - k - u - z - o -

Most called Lugia a 'bird'. It was only those of Blackthorn that called Lugia a 'dragon'. Except it looked like no native dragon, but Clair kept pointing out to him only two types of creatures live in the sea: fish (by which she meant both fish and whales) and dragons. Birds do not live in the ocean, they are air creatures. But since Clair was also the sort of person to believe the likes of Kyogre was more draconic than "fish", he wondered of the merits.

But dragons were also of the air, just like birds. He once asked why the Dragon clan wasn't situated in Hoenn, where the heaviest concentration of dragons lived. The true reason, mind, not their fabled reason. She didn't tell him, tried to change the subject and move on. He didn't ask again.

But where some dragons may not be true-bred dragons (Gyarados, Charizard), and were still revered as symbols of worship, it was the undeniable ones that were objects of awe and astonishment. They were the unreadable, the indistinguishable, the uncanny. They went where they liked and damned be the one that tried to prevent it. Which is exactly what happened over the Johkan continent.

What brought the great peacekeeper across the sea was a mystery, but Lugia wouldn't have any of it. Directly connected to the ocean as Kyogre was, to the moon as Cresselia was, Lugia was a proud beast, and no legendary took kindly to being invaded by foreign pokémon. They soared across the skyscape, bringing gales and tornados in their furious wake, their attacks burning the heavens and the land below.

A direct hit with an Aeroblast brought Rayquaza plummeting to the forest behind Violet City, ironically, onto the very patch of earth Lugia gave sanctuary to. It confused the priests, watching Lugia hover impatiently and with temptation, and where Rayquaza tried to rise, they kept it down, for its own sake.

Falkner shook his head; theoretically, gods did not have faults or ever put to blame. While his mother dealt with appeasing the tidal god, Falkner was put to charge determining Rayquaza's condition.

"Someone get a hold of old man Sigmund and Leader Clair!"

The dragon cult knew far more than they did when it came to the draconic, and legendaries were fickle creatures. Rayquaza wanted up, and if it hadn't been exhausted to the point of death, there would be no way for humans to prevent its desired actions. Ropes were tossed across it (a matter of safety for all) to anchor it down on the pitiful weight of twenty-odd priests, and Falkner stalked with intention to the mouth that snapped at anything nearby.

"You're injured, mighty lord," he told it, in the flat tones of ritual appeasement, but he doubted Rayquaza would want to understand. Mostly, the giant creatures never wanted to. "Lugia won't strike you here, though it wants to, and you wish to retaliate."

Rayquaza regarded him with an angry yellow eye, opened its maw and roared at him; the breath smelled rotten. Falkner fought not to flinch.

"We can help you if you don't want to die, and as long as you stay far away from Johto, you may attack Lugia to your heart's content on full health."

"It's that too much?" whispered the priest beside him, holding in his precarious hands a decent-sized urn.

"Not if you want your country to turn into a wasteland," he told the other. Louder, he addressed the dragon further. "Please cooperate with us, Heaven's Ambassador. Our home is as sacred as yours."

Rayquaza's growls were high-pitched and fluted. But it didn't make to snap them in two as Falkner and his aide approached closer in caution. That same angry eye was upon him, open, unforgiving, and yielding. Falkner dipped his entire hand into the urn and it lifted out covered in shimmering, pale-crystal-blue sap, and let it settle at the bridge between Rayquaza's brows. With slow strokes, he coated the area lavishly, witnessing the growls begin to quiet and the angry, yellow eye begin to close.

"Go back to Lady Hayabusan," Falkner instructed, and the aide followed back the rest of the entourage returning to the Gym. The sap was dry and flaking off his hand, and dry only at the edges of Rayquaza's application, but Falkner kept petting it.

If only to tell it in sleep that someone was still at its side.


	48. Charizard

**Edition**: "Abby Normal" (ninth set)  
- _Set #_: 1  
**Character**: Charizard  
- _Pairing_: Yangshipping  
- _Universe_: none**  
Rating**: E (Everyone)  
- _Warnings_: none

- i - k - u - z - o -

Liza was always so accommodating when he dropped by with a pokémon or two to train. It gave the Charizard of Charicific Valley a little variety to their own training, and gave Falkner literal obstacles to overcome (the Charizard of the valley were no joke; beat them and you had virtual powerhouses under your belt).

Going there also got him in contact with wildly different battle styles that allowed for his own trainees to find what strategies suited their natural talents best. All was fine, but....

One Charizard always watched them and never took up the challenge. Always curled up on a ledge, always sleepy-looking but with one eye open, always nearby.

"He's the most docile," Liza had explained. "He's also a bit past his prime, but he's still ragingly powerful. He can still knock down most of the younger Charizard here with little effort."

And with each session, Falkner found that particular Charizard getting closer. Only recently did it park itself on a low outcrop not ten feet from where Falkner had planted himself, an area Falkner now felt incline to occupy for its vast environmental variations of mountain-shapes.

Today was no different in routine, Falkner watching his little Swablu practice Aerial Ace on a smaller, newer, brasher Charizard, and "his" Charizard watching him. Training went into the night, the flying Charizard's tail its only telltale beacon, and the glow of Swablu's attempts as Dragon Pulse the only hint they were still up there, waging war in the sky.

Falkner was two minutes away from recalling Swablu (it shouldn't be pushing itself so hard, he kept telling himself) when a torch of light appeared on his left, and a great orange head was immediately spotted to his left. Its body was only inches away from the back of Falkner's legs, and he stared down at it, not quite struck dumb, but mystified nonetheless.

They shared a moment, the old Charizard's blue eyes locked on his. But then the Charizard chuffed, fell asleep, and curled up closer to the human as if a cat. Falkner smiled down at it.

"You choose strange bedfellows."


	49. Mantine

**Edition**: "Abby Normal" (ninth set)  
- _Set #_: 1  
**Character**: Mantine  
- _Pairing_: Windsurfershipping  
- _Universe_: none**  
Rating**: E (Everyone)  
- _Warnings_: none

- i - k - u - z - o -

I may not fly through the air, but I certainly fly through the sea.  
I'm not used often, but I love it when it's just master and me.  
It's a secret we keep,  
our trips to the deep.  
So when it's only us two on the big blue, I make sure we're free.


	50. Morty

**Edition**: OTP (eighth set)  
- _Set #_: 1  
**Character**: Morty  
- _Pairing_: Honorshipping  
- _Universe_: none**  
Rating**: E (Everyone)  
- _Warnings_: none  
**Theme**: "towers" by esm8m

- i - k - u - z - o -

"There are only three."

"I told you you wouldn't like it."

On the top floor of the Tin Tower, the surviving Crystal Bells were back in their respected corners, with a small podium shrine tucked in the fourth corner with the pieces of the shattered relic atop it. Falkner folded his arms inside his sleeves, and tried not to twitch too much. "Have you located any crystal fashioners?"

"Kurt Gantetsu gave me a number of artisan contacts that might be able to get us in contact with one. No guarantees."

Morty had barely looked him in the eye since they got closer to the tower, and not at all once they were inside. Even now, Morty was looking everywhere else but at Falkner, and Falkner new what it meant: self-blame. "Did Eusine do this?" he clipped, trying not to sound angry but there were just some people who didn't deserve anything but contempt.

"Well, no; the damage was done by some incompetent vagrants, but he was here at the time."

The whole story didn't take long: Ash (Falkner had been surprised, but not shocked, and stayed silent about the equal acquaintance) returned, passing through to Mahogany, Eusine's untimely arrival, the bells rang (why Falkner was here in the first place; it took two days to get it through the grepa-vine), and an appearance by Suicune. What could have been grander.

"He didn't do anything," Morty tried to justify, but it seemed even to the blond a little weak, "too rash. The boy said he'd seen Suicune entering Johto, and Eusine--"

"--flew off the rocker." Falkner thinned his lips. "So the bells ringing was only a false alarm," he said, hiding his aching disappointment.

"Yes," Morty confirmed, more obvious in his sadness. He moved to one of the walls and fingered open one of the sliding doors to the small, circulating terrace beyond. When Falkner joined him to lean over the railing, Morty was pensively looking to the escaping landscape beyond them. "I had really hoped Ash seeing Suicune had been a sign, and once the bells started ringing...." That hope was stomped on, repeatedly; it went without saying. "I don't want _them_ to be right."

"I know." Falkner knew as well as Morty did: this partnership, though unlikely to restore the two sects—never mind bring about the return of Lugia and Ho-Oh—was pivotal in setting the groundwork for the eventual reunification of their religions. Time was a resource they did have, but couldn't spend impatiently. And in their grand scheme, the world was in the midst of an eye-blink for all the couple of years the pair have been working in this direction.

Looking at Morty's face, however, Falkner also understood something: he hadn't been there to hear the crystal carillons. Morty had. Morty had been the one to have his hope skyrocket, only to be damaged discovering the missing bells. Falkner could sympathize, but he couldn't empathize. Falkner hadn't been the one deeply injured by this.

"You know," he began quietly, settling to bring their heads together, "you still saw Suicune. And Eusine couldn't manage to catch it. I'd call that a good day."

Morty laughed under his breath and smiled, in the slight way he's known for. "I kind of wish Suicune hadn't come. I would have loved to see if Ash could defeat Eusine. It would say so much about the kid."

"He's got Suicune's blessing," Falkner agreed, and turned his head to the side just enough so their noses touched. "And maybe that's the kind of hope we need."


	51. Tracey

**Edition**: Nakama (eleventh set)  
- _Set #_: 3  
**Character**: Tracey  
- _Pairing_: Wintergreenshipping  
- _Universe_: none**  
Rating**: E (Everyone)  
- _Warnings_: none

- i - k - u - z - o -

He caught him napping supine on the sunlight-caked couch one afternoon, wonderfully vulnerable and exposed for the taking. It wouldn't take much, just a little coaxing, a touch here, a caress there. Have to be gentle, else he'll wake, don't have much time either way. No way to know how long the victim would stay cooperative and static.

Falkner woke up half an hour later, with a short yawn and a face-rub, to find Tracey in a chair across from him, sketch pad in hand and a disappointed pout on his fresh countenance. "Oh well," he sighed. "All good things come to an end."

"Strange choice," he said, deducing the situation. While he stretched, Tracey happily crossed the moderate distance, dropping himself carefully into Falkner's lap. With a quick kiss, he was more than pleased to show off his worked sketch. "I think you got the wrong model," Falkner confessed, bemused. "I don't look like that."

Tracey simply smiled. "Trust me, you do."


	52. Dawn

**Edition**: Nakama (eleventh set)  
- _Set #_: 5  
**Character**: Dawn  
- _Pairing_: Songshipping  
- _Universe_: none**  
Rating**: E (Everyone)  
- _Warnings_: none

- i - k - u - z - o -

She clung to his arm so securely, Falkner could feel the planes of her body as if she were bare. He wondered if inviting her with him to the gala was the right choice; he hadn't been allowed to let another League member ride his side, and they had only recently started dating. _Recently_, as in hardly a month ago. Did he really want to be seen with her just yet?

But then she escaped in a flurry of smiles and cultured execution, making her way straight to Johto's current League all-star, Lyra, with the familiarity of old friends, and it was like she fit in already, with the poppet's blessing.

"The Sinnoh girl?" Morty asked, not a moment later, quiet as a cat and mellow as one too.

"She came with a Togekiss and had me at, 'Can you help me?'" he explained flatly, his eyes never leaving her in the small crowd. "She has a pedigree to be approved of, if push comes to shove."

Morty hummed in acknowledgment. "Do you like her that much?"

Just then, she turned and gave a composed wave with a bright smile, a beam of light that reflected off the sequins of her dress. It made him feel awkward and shy, but... Yes. Maybe he didn't mind being seen with her.

"A little more each second."


	53. Brock

**Edition**: Nakama (eleventh set)  
- _Set #_: 1  
**Character**: Brock  
- _Pairing_: Inheritshipping  
- _Universe_: none**  
Rating**: E (Everyone)  
- _Warnings_: none

- i - k - u - z - o -

The water was winter-spring cold, the chill and the impact of slamming into it stunning him still, and the weight of his clothing dragging him down to a death he could not comprehend in that moment. Slow and steady, a retched torment of a freezing burn coursing into his chest, unbeatable. It's what happened when wars lasted into winters, two years and two winters; he thought there would be more for him...

It was the voice of the other-world girl crying his name that he woke up choking to. As it appeared, water burned leaving his lungs as much as it did entering them. She was asking him questions, and he was giving orders--

Hayato gave the not-Takeshi a blank look, watching his hair drip, noting how the girl's hadn't.

"We're on the other side of the lake," not-Takeshi explained, and he felt his head shift not by his own volition. He thought he felt fingers on the back of his head. "Ma-Matis you called him?" The name was strange to him, still, as their names were strange among himself and the peerage. Hayato almost saw how it rolled around in his mouth. "He didn't see us. Left once you didn't come back up."

_Pulverized by steel tempered by far stronger arms. "Damn Johto swine! Surrender already! Your country can't stand on miracles much longer!"_

"He's going in the same direction your friends took Ash," the girl said, worriedly.

This...this not-Takeshi, who looked like him and sounded like him and smelled like him and felt like him and acted like him...

Why were they so alike? How weren't they the same?

Hayato grit his chattering teeth and clenched his eyes shut in anguish. This was not fair. Why should war break out now and take his friend away, then somehow drop an other-worlder into his lap that was basically him with a strange, unintelligible name? Because now, he couldn't keep either. Takeshi had chosen Matis (without knowing, or seeing, how Hayato had felt); not-Takeshi and his friends had to be sent back.

But once he opened them, he tried to sit up, marginally making it on his own; his clothing stuck to him like friendly ice. Time to stop thinking about this. That Boy was in danger, if Kanto wasn't ignorant to Johto's movements; he had to contact them. "You still have to be taken to the ruins," he said. "Your friend is protected as well as we can provide for, and there's a communications tower not too far from there. Get you there, and hopefully we'll be in time to warn them."

Act cold, act unforgiving, act ungrateful. He was colder than Yanagi's glares, inside and out. Don't give the children one kind thought of this place. Don't give them reason to remember it beyond a dimensional displacement. Not-Takeshi helped him up, and Hayato shrugged him off. The girl wasn't blind to the snub no more than not-Takeshi was. Leave it that way.

Don't make them wish for things they cannot have.


	54. May

**Edition**: Nakama (eleventh set)  
- _Set #_: 4  
**Character**: May  
- _Pairing_: FengHuangshipping  
- _Universe_: none**  
Rating**: E (Everyone)  
- _Warnings_: none

- i - k - u - z - o -

He wasn't much into watching ordinary television; there was also something else to do to fill up his time. But she wanted to watch some movie about a giant Tyranitar terrorizing the fair people of Saffron with him (which he knew to be a scarier place without a giant stone-scaled reptile on the rampage, thanks to the likes of Sabrina), and he wasn't about to deny a simple want such as that.

So curled up on the couch they became, and while there were better things he could be doing, his mind insistently nagged, even that late at night...spending time with May trumped any chore he could think of, his heart argued.

"I've seen giant pokémon before," May confessed, though it sounded more like a joke than a confession. Her head was laying on his shoulder, confined by fingers carding gently into her hair.

"Oh really?" He didn't quite believe her, but stranger things have happened in real life. "What sort?"

"A Claydol, a Gulpin, a Caterpie that became a Butterfree..."

"They Hyper Beam cities into destruction?"

She hit him lightly in the thigh for teasing her. He chuckled. "You better believe me," she said, pouting.

"Throw in a Venomoth and I will."

"You weren't suppose to have a sense of humor."

"I like you flustered?"

She made a little disapproving noise Falkner liked (it was cute), and slid down the couch until her head rested in his lap. "And what great adventures did you have, Mr. Half-the-world-flies-by-me?"

He didn't stop carding her hair. "All the ones I'm ever going to have, ending with you."


	55. Misty

**Edition**: Nakama (eleventh set)  
- _Set #_: 2  
**Character**: Misty  
- _Pairing_: Prideshipping  
- _Universe_: none**  
Rating**: E (Everyone)  
- _Warnings_: none

- i - k - u - z - o -

Watching Chuck and Misty bringing it down to the battle of the amphibians wasn't too thrilling: it was simply Poliwrath exerting its energy (with precise control no one doubted of Chuck's training) to a Politoed who used its energy to effectively dodge. She won due to stamina; Politoed never would have had a chance otherwise.

He never guessed, the first time he met her (on the road with The Boy), she was one of the Cerulean sisters. She looked like none of them, acted like none of them, dressed like none of them. Any one of the other sisters would have forfeit after two seconds (Violet) after the start, or after one attack (Lily), or after one faint of three (Daisy). Apparently it was the black sheep that made the effort. He liked that.

Black sheep made life exciting.

He made the trip to congratulate her, making it casual, simple, as if he had not gone out of his way. Struck up a strained conversation that had little to do with anything except how she fought, and a little on her friends. It wasn't the smoothest conversation--Corey laughed at him later, Morty was a little more sympathetic, Whitney hit the middle ground--but he did believe he had a little hope.

"Find me after the bouts are over, okay?" she had said, with sunny smile. "We can get some tea."

Hey, it worked for him.


	56. Glacia

**Edition**: Super Effective (twelfth set)  
- _Set #_: 3  
**Character**: Glacia  
- _Pairing_: Borealisshipping  
- _Universe_: Before Elitism**  
Rating**: E (Everyone)  
- _Warnings_: none

- i - k - u - z - o -

I remember seeing him on TV, when I was fourteen. I remember my Smoochum was fast asleep in the corner of the couch, for it was very late at night, and the Silver Conference was sunny, bright, and live.

I remember I was peeling a large sitrus berry with a specialty knife, the skin trailing long enough to touch the sofa cushions, a skill long-time practice was called for.

I remember stopping when the cheering and commentary shifted dynamic, and there was screaming and shouting and horrified stuttering that didn't come from excitement. I remember watching, hearing, "It hit the trainer!" with a shrill of fear I momentarily attributed to wondering if the announcer was afraid this would cost him his job; as if he could do anything for the boy in his box.

I was enraptured with the images before me. My half-attention was at full now, watching raptly to the point of forgetting I was holding a sharp object, not that any harm came to me while I was engrossed. This boy had to be barely eleven, hovering protectively over his pokémon.

And when it evolved...

And when it attacked...

It was like watching snow in the silence of winter fall down to quietly die...but before it did, it would give the performance of its life.

The image of a frenzied fight, the beauty of a disadvantage being completely turned around...that was battle. That was the pristine clarity of war. That was the type of passion I wanted in my fighting, in my partners, that ferocity beneath the ice.

The boy never showed up in another League Tournament again; his match surely would have been televised, had it. No, it wasn't until I had settled in Hoenn did I see him again. And I simply had to say hello for the first time.


	57. Candice

**Edition**: Super Effective (twelfth set)  
- _Set #_: 5  
**Character**: Candice  
- _Pairing_: Zenithshipping  
- _Universe_: none**  
Rating**: E (Everyone)  
- _Warnings_: none

- i - k - u - z - o -

The twelve-year-old girl was loud, accented only by her free way of speaking. The fact she challenged his father by saying, "Get your ki-ai on, old timer!" without a stroke of hesitation, matched with an arrogance coupled with that of due respect (somehow)...well, Wren loved her immediately and fought her three-on-one.

When she was down to a Snover, and Skarmory was on its last legs, Wren made an aside to his son: "It's going to be a draw," he quietly confided. "Ingrain isn't working fast enough, and her Meditite took a lot out of Skarmory."

True to his prediction, Snover's Ice Punch connected with Skarmory's Drill Peck, and they both collapsed, drained to exhaustion. Once the draw was called, students rushed to Skarmory's side and Candice recalled Snover, whispering jubilant strings of praise for its tenacity. Falkner fell in step beside Wren, who didn't pause as he ran a caress over Skarmory's crest, wordlessly showing his support for its strength.

"I like your spunk," Wren told Candice. "So you can take the badge if you want, or come back when beating me all the way is fair game."

She never took her eyes off Wren, and she said, as strong as everything else, "I'll let you keep your badge, if you let me take your boy out for a date."

As Wren looked as his son, and so did she (with a gaze far too fiery for anyone to be comfortable with), Falkner suddenly felt like he had missed some step in this day when this sudden turn of events could have possibly made sense.

"What?!"

Wren laughed; Candice got her condition; Falkner was owed a comeuppance. Any moment now.


	58. Roxanne

**Edition**: Super Effective (twelfth set)  
- _Set #_: 2  
**Character**: Roxanne  
- _Pairing_: BeginnerLuckshipping  
- _Universe_: none**  
Rating**: E (Everyone)  
- _Warnings_: none

- i - k - u - z - o -

He was invited the same day she was, not so much to pit against a teacher and an instructor, but because the kids might find it fun to see the differences in style. Thankfully, both were good-natured about it. It wasn't like Falkner was suddenly sprung with her type-affinity, so he wasn't surprised at all by her Nosepass, but the kids all turned to him with wide, almost fearful eyes, seemingly expecting him to explode, or something.

"What?" he asked of them. "It's a Rock-type. They're everywhere. Get over it."

The point was to demonstrate type wasn't the sure-win. Yes, Rock-types crushed Flying-types, and so did a Nosepass' Lock-On-Zap-Cannon combination, but if you can avoid those (not so much the Lock-On), a Steel Wing was a good counterbalance, and in a pinch, so was Mud-Slap.

"And," Roxanne pointed out, during a pause, "if Pidgeot were Staraptor, a Flying-type indigenous to the Sinnoh region, it would use a move called Close Combat, a Fighting-class offensive move, meaning it's super-effective against Rock-types. But cramming all the moves you can into one partner is never wise."

"A wide range is admirable," Falkner continued, "but not beneficial. Knowing at lot of moves moderately well doesn't compare to knowing several moves impressively well."

Roxanne won, in the end, but it wasn't a loss he was feeling. It wasn't like he was giving it his all. Funnily enough, Roxanne was thinking the same thing. She didn't have to return home until tomorrow.

Oh what a night that was.


	59. Roark

**Edition**: Super Effective (twelfth set)  
- _Set #_: 4  
**Character**: Roark  
- _Pairing_: Athenashipping  
- _Universe_: none**  
Rating**: T (Teen)  
- _Warnings_: blatantly supplied and **implied sexual relations**

- i - k - u - z - o -

There was something off-setting about Roark as a child. Falkner held the photograph between his thumb and index, staring intently at the aged imaged of a younger (but not that anyone would notice) Byron holding a young Roark in his arms, two capes fluttering at their backs.

For all that Roark loved his father, the miner was very much his mother's son: delicate-looking, deceptively hiding his real strength without trying, soft and without the rough angles. But as much as he looked like his mother....

Falkner met Byron twice in Roark's company. He learned more about fossils, geology, natural history, holes, and defense than at any point in his life afterward. The application of the latter half was put to good use that night, under the very-private joke Roark knew more about penetrating holes and defense than his father did about making them and erecting them; Falkner told him to shut up about Byron and just keep doing what he was doing, but harder if-he-wouldn't-mind.

But this boy who wanted to be like his father, compared to the man who didn't want to be (not really), didn't seem at all like the Roark he knew. Perhaps it was the idea Roark was once so small and unflaggingly impressionable, and the man the child grew into--he knew--would never wear a cape.

He laughed quietly, and suddenly found the photo plucked from his fingers with arms coming around to rest on his shoulders.

"Making fun of me?" Roark asked.

"Oh?" Falkner feigned innocence; yeah, he imagined, settling back, nothing like the boy. "I thought that was your sister."


	60. Lorelei

**Edition**: Super Effective (twelfth set)  
- _Set #_: 1  
**Character**: Lorelei  
- _Pairing_: Blizzardshipping  
- _Universe_: none**  
Rating**: MA (Mature Audiences)  
- _Warnings_: **dubious-consensualism **

- i - k - u - z - o -

_"Do you want to comfort me...little man?"_

Stolen away for a night, the very night of the afternoon she publicly broke off with her lover. Wrong place, right time, all hers, none mine. She frightened me, when she put her finely manicured nails to my throat, cupping my cheek and forcing me to look up at her, the caged animal that I was to her mighty, mighty hunter.

_"Stay with me,"_ he had whispered, her lips just barely grazing my ear, her breasts emphasizing exactly what she meant the way they lay pressed against me. I had wanted to say 'no', but the word that fell from my obviously trembling lips was as far from 'no' as they could possibly be.

This is the fifth time she's called on me, in the last few weeks. I want to deny her, but I shake at the thought of doing so, and it's not in excitement.

There is no safe-word with her; I can only imagine what sort of tried-and-true sex her and Lance engaged in. "Stop," just means she's getting to her victim, and makes her want to do it more, to reassure the ineffable fact that she is Alpha. I tell her to stop all the time, and she really likes it when I tear up. I'm inexperienced, yes, but I'm not stupid. This isn't normal, and neither are her desires.

I'm no ordinary rebound; I'm the get-your-ex-jealous rebound. Lorelei broke up with Lance to see how much around her finger he is, and how far he would go to get back with her. I was the pawn, the sacrifice, the shield between them. I only hoped I could escape. This was going too far.

She grabbed my chin half-an-hour later, forcing me to look at her, at her perfect smile, her loose red hair, her smooth skin covered in a fine sheen, her dazzling eyes without her glasses, and said, "You're being such a good boy. Maybe it's time I showed you what it's like to really be a woman." And those nails reached down to my ass, where I got the feeling this wasn't at all for my benefit and the taste of her in my mouth suddenly began to worsen.

So much for the thought of escape once she reunited with her beau. And that terrified me...ten times more.


	61. Brawly

**Edition**: Fight Club (fourteenth set)  
- _Set #_: 2  
**Character**: Brawly  
- _Pairing_: Tailspinshipping  
- _Universe_: **none  
Rating**: E (Everyone)  
- _Warnings_: none

- i - k - u - z - o -

Practice mats were like a pulled punch: it hurt less to make contact with it, but you still hurt all the same. And Brawly kept throwing him to the ground, in and out of the lines of 'practice'. It wasn't like Falkner hadn't made his own by subduing Brawly, but the way Brawly made it come across felt suspicious, if nothing else.

Of course Chuck would have gone, "Bruno's got this kid for a student who's about your age," if only to encourage friendly relations, despite not technically being a student of the Cianwood Leader himself (Mother said Chuck's style was too crude; she always had something to say about everything). "Old men shouldn't be your only master opponents."

But it was _fun_, and Fun was something sorely lacking in his life at the moment. Never mind it took an hour to get used to Brawly's unorthodox manners (were all Hoenn islanders like him?), but he was almost too easy to just talk to. The constant physical contact was something he could live without (he was literally no different than Chuck, except Falkner doubted Brawly would leave the same kinds of bruises), but other than that...take away all of Falkner's complaints, Brawly was sort of...

Nice.

The mats met him with a grunt and an unnecessary pinning. Above him, Brawly grinned somewhat cheesily dash somewhat apologetic dash all too happily. Falkner gave him a hooded stare. "Can you do anything else besides throws?" he asked, miffed.

"Well, how else am I gonna know if I'm your type?"

Wait, he took it back. Brawly was a Moron.


	62. Maylene

**Edition**: Fight Club (fourteenth set)  
- _Set #_: 4  
**Character**: Maylene  
- _Pairing_: CraneStyleshipping  
- _Universe_: **none  
Rating**: E (Everyone)  
- _Warnings_: none

- i - k - u - z - o -

"Wouldn't a ladder be more productive? And sturdy?"

Maylene smiled shyly down at him, which he was which he caught a fleeting glance of before his neck began demanding more respect, bent back so far as it had been. One less ache to worry about; his shoulders weren't going to forgive him as readily. "I looked."

"That's it?"

"That's it."

Falkner snorted, but clamped his hands tighter around the top of her bare feet, feeling them shift ever so minutely on his naked muscles, as Maylene adjusted her weight. "It's good practice, I suppose."

"If it weren't a rest day, I wouldn't have to bother you like this."

"So how long does it take a gym leader to screw in a light bulb?"

She giggled. It was a novel titter, pleasant to the ears. "Third one's almost in. I don't like leaning this far over."

Falkner didn't blame her, but neither felt too comfortable being too far away from the wall if not to catch them if they stumbled. But the rock and hard place was either have the wall close and the socket only just within reach, or the socket in reach and the wall nowhere near helpful. Lesser of two evils, they decided. "Start growing again," he told her. "And get a ladder."

"We have one though."

"But you can't find it."

"I'll find it."

"You said that twice before."

"Done!" They righted and Maylene slipped deftly off his shoulders. "Last one?"

"Wanna switch places?"

"Why--"

"Strength training." He grinned. A towel was promptly thrown in his face.

"No way."


	63. Crasher Wake

**Edition**: Fight Club (fourteenth set)  
- _Set #_: 5  
**Character**: Crasher Wake  
- _Pairing_: Halcyonshipping  
- _Universe_: none**  
Rating**: E (Everyone)  
- _Warnings_: none

- i - k - u - z - o -

"Put-me-down-put-me-down-you-crazy-old-bastard-put-me-down!"

"Got a wily one here! Ha ha!"

Being treated like a child was not cool, in Falkner's fine-if-he-said-so opinion. But the man thought himself too tall to be a crutch (which wasn't too far off), but to be _carried_ because of a sprained ankle was not his ideal picture of dignity in the face of injury. It was rather embarrassing. It only grew worse when the Nurse Joy with a...Croagunk? (what insanity was this?)...beamed like a sunny ray across the mire, and Falkner feared this woman for a reason that might have related to the area, the frog, or the fact he was being carried bride-style by a man in a mask, and they were greeting each other and...and...

Falkner never stopped having a flush face the entire time he was stuck in Pastoria, far from home, with a wrapped ankle and a hulking visitor who thought it appropriate to be his company when Leader things didn't preside first. Treating him as terminal, with all his fruit gifts, instead of off his feet for a while.

Maybe he wouldn't stop blushing because he thought before having been put down, his butt had been groped; or he thought Wake's smiles were a little too friendly; or that he always ruffled his hair before he left, and his hand lingered a little too long. Or maybe that with each over-analysis that _could_ be overactive imagination...he started to wonder if he was actually starting to like the crazy bastard.

He was not thankful for his sprain, in light of that. Not at all.


	64. Bruno

**Edition**: Fight Club (fourteenth set)  
- _Set #_: 1  
**Character**: Bruno  
- _Pairing_: Ventifactshipping  
- _Universe_: Before Elitism**  
Rating**: E (Everyone)  
- _Warnings_: none

- i - k - u - z - o -

They had heroes, once upon a time. Snuck away from their homes to crash at Whitney's, a couple years after their run through the League's tournament. "Bruno is gonna battle Bridgette*!" the candy-haired girl had piped over the videophone. "Come watch it with me! Papa said it was okay!"

They were still small; the six of them crowded just fine on the three-seater couch, as long as one of them sat on the arm (Clair camped herself there). Though Will joked they wouldn't once the night was over, pointing to the spread of snack food on the coffee table. But who cared; there were no adults, and it may as well have been a party.

Back in his day, when he had beaten the previous champion Cole*, and was selected for an Elite Four seat, Bruno had been a beast. He and his had trained until they were at the point he didn't even need to use more than two of his partners to win a full six-on-six. But Bridgette was a master if anyone had ever seen one. While Fighting-types had the advantage against Steel-types, the battles dragged on for so long, they were at one each, and Hitmonchan's knees were buckling where it stood against the clean show of Scizor.

In the middle of the couch, squashed between Morty and Whitney, Falkner held a pillow to himself, watching with a silent rapacity. In his mind, he was playing the same scenario in his mind, facing off against Bruno with his birds. His same twelve year old self, facing off with the giant from the north and toppling the man with the same brute strength Bruno used himself.

But then he thought back to his only challenge, his loss, and being nowhere near good enough to even reach that victory-that _chance_-to get into such the presence of such prestige. And he thought ruefully, _This is as close as I'll ever get to the likes of them._

- t - i - m - e -

"...You said you were leaving once you left the plateau today."

"Yeah. But I though once last glimpse would suffice."

Falkner smiled warmly, affectionately, and waited until Bruno leaned over before giving him a "have a good year" kiss on the cheek.

- m - a - t - t - e -

* = OCs.


	65. Greta

**Edition**: Fight Club (fourteenth set)  
- _Set #_: 1  
**Character**: Greta  
- _Pairing_: Chantshipping  
- _Universe_: none**  
Rating**: MA (Mature Audiences)  
- _Warnings_: **non-graphic sex**

- i - k - u - z - o -

It was like dating a whirlwind and having sex with a spark plug. It wasn't that Greta was an overly excitable girl. It was that she liked facing outside life the same way she did her martial arts: with a vibrancy to meet it all, head on, with the strength to contend with it. The problem came from this, however: it was awfully infectious.

The entertainment district in Saffron was the last place Falkner ever wanted to be in his life. It was crowded, cramped, choked, loud, and...extremely, extremely gaudy. And so far from decent civilization, he feared being separated from Greta, and vice versa. Never mind that if they stayed here for much longer, the neon lights were going to burn his eyes clean from his head.

Except after drinks, dinner, slots, karaoke, and three street performances, in not that order at all, she gave him a smoldering look that made his heart skip and squeeze while it raced from the environment's intoxicating influence. Sequestered down a tight, shadowed ally, she pulled him into a torrid kiss and tugged so roughly at his belt, he wasn't even sure she was the reason his hips were moving.

Lost in her world, Falkner was willing to forget it all; she was so very controlled within her franticness because she _knew_ what the hell it was she was doing, it was so...childishly easy to fall into her own tempo. This, in his arms, was a lifetime-pursuit in personified form: Greta was in charge of herself, and no matter how uninhibited she seemed, she was still a master of her mind and body.

That said, he realized all too late that his pants were as wide open as Greta's nice, sky-blue top, and in the next minute, was awe-inspiringly reminded how flexible and accommodating she always made herself be. Just for him, for now.


	66. Suicune

**Edition**: HGSS  
- _Set #_: 5**  
Character**: Suicune  
- _Pairing_: Northwindshipping  
- _Universe_: n/a**  
Rating**: E (Everybody)  
- _Warnings_: none

- i - k - u - z - o -

**You could have been the one,** _it told him, nuzzling the side of his face with a lonely type of affection. Its face was now covered in vibrant red, off-setting the magnificent shade of horizon blue. It laid down beside him, to rest his head on a bare chest similarly colored red._ **We fly like no other creatures in the world. You had potential, just without the experience. Would you be so cold now, if I had taken you with me? My young West Wind.**

Falkner opened his eyes without much fanfare, feeling heavy and lazy. While the scenery before him wasn't unfamiliar, he was a little surprised that the cityscape was being bathed in sunset. _Slept too long,_ he chided himself, as he knocked the kinks out of his muscles. The dream he had had began to fade from his care; his battle with Ho-oh's three Stewards of Earth had been years ago, and the crisis averted itself not too long after.

What right did he have to imagine that either creature may have wanted _him_?


	67. HoOh

**Edition**: HGSS  
- _Set #_: 2**  
Character**: Ho-Oh  
- _Pairing_: Rivenshipping  
- _Universe_: n/a**  
Rating**: E (Everybody)  
- _Warnings_: none

- i - k - u - z - o -

**Your heart aches with strife unborn. Too fiery, too stubborn, but too good in nature. You abhor yourself, and you love the untouchable. You're not pure enough for me, Priest, but we burn the same in the heart.**

You will never see me but in your dreams; Kikyou would never have it, otherwise. No, I give you another task, and I will bless you with my protection. For you burn, but you are ready for anger. You remind me of zhem, in a human shell: willing to die, and willing to hate, but with coaxing, willing to love. Love me, Priest, please.

Show me once more...a time when zhei loved me...

Falkner gently twirled the colorful pinion in his fingers, before replacing it carefully with its silver mate. Remembering the dream he had that had preceded discovering the feather, however, made him blush.


	68. Raikou

**Edition**: HGSS  
- _Set #_: 1**  
Character**: Raikou  
- _Pairing_: Hateshipping  
- _Universe_: n/a**  
Rating**: E (Everybody)  
- _Warnings_: none

- i - k - u - z - o -

_Not you!_

**Yes me.**

He couldn't move. The power in just the living lightning's leg could crush him, but all it did was bear down its weight to pin him thoroughly.

**You despise us so much, for we clip your wings. With our souls, we take you away form our pure skies with your dirty bodies, you damn birds. Just bodies of flesh and bone. No power, no question. You pollute the sun's skies, and you take away the majesty of my father's realm. So clean, father's fire purifies where your feathers have flown, with light and color from a power so worshiped. Why do you fly, Heathen?**

_My gods fly, too!_

**False idols! Mother never born those elements that father born of us. False idols and false leads. Don't sully us by comparing our sky to their waste of space. Ground your birds. Fire rises, lightning falls, and a wind blows free. I do not like you.**

_I do not like you, either._

**We agree. But father said we should mind you. You and others. I do not like it. But for father...I would bear to love you.**

Raikou removed its paw.

**So do not put me in a position where I must.**


	69. Entei

**Edition**: HGSS  
- _Set #_: 4**  
Character**: Entei  
- _Pairing_: Tephrashipping  
- _Universe_: n/a**  
Rating**: E (Everybody)  
- _Warnings_: none

- i - k - u - z - o -

The unsettled lands beyond the mountains of the north were a frozen wasteland, the Sinjoh ruins a silent sanctuary for all who dare venture near the touch of God. The blizzard, he had expected. The strength of it, he had not. Falkner couldn't leave until it let up, none of his partners built to withstand the severity. Certainly, he had time to search deeper, to search for the information his own that had been readily available back home.

Seeing for yourself was usually more convincing.

But like all ancient temples, he was soon breathing into his bare hands futilely before replacing them inside thick gloves, because there was no such thing as heating. Flexing his hands and wiggling his toes, Falkner scoffed a little. The light of the sun was no longer in the temple, meaning night was only around the corner. He didn't want to stay, but it looked like he would have to. Good thing he came somewhat prepared.

But not enough (a snow cloak lined with Ursaring fur was no replacement for a thermal sleeping bag), and finding a place in the temple where the wind didn't reach would take him too far into the temple. He make a face at his options, and was even staring at the doors to the main chamber, weighing his options on if desecrating the main shrine was blasphemous enough-

-he gasped in shock at the blast of scorching air at his back, curling around, and his body was greedy for it. The heat was of other origin; as familiar as any battle. Falkner turned around, expecting some sort of wayward fire-type.

He hadn't expected the burdening presence of an Entei. His flashlight dropped in surprise.

The Entei stood at the entrance, those smart eyes on the only other living thing sharing its space. _I'm going crazy,_ his mind supplied, and Falkner stood still as it approached him, regal and robust and right at home wherever it stepped. It never stopped looking at him, almost brushing up against him, until its body had passed his own. _Warm._ Falkner spun around as it began to enter one of the corridors, but it paused. Looked to him again. Tapped the floor with its paw, twice in quick succession.

Falkner wasn't sure what it wanted, and fumbled out a guess: "Follow?"

The Entei straighten itself even more, and it led Falkner through a labyrinth, one the casual explorer wouldn't dare travel down. But then it entered a room, small and mercifully draft-less. Entei's heat filled it in an instant, almost stifling so. And it spun around in place in the center, only to settle down like a lazy leonine. What was Falkner supposed to do there?

Entei made that decision for him, pulling the boy down and pressing him to its flank, ending with the beast curling around him. The heat was dizzying, making him drowsy. _Why?_ he asked, but it wasn't like he would be answered. So warm... _Saved by the opposition._

**Mein asked me,** he dreamed. **Whispers in the never-afters... Prophecy, prophecy, they come down to your lineage. Born in Ecruteak, it shall end in Ecruteak. Live, Little Brother, for we have fathers from that forsaken area. We need you to live, and to love. For tonight, I will love you.**


	70. Lugia

**Edition**: HGSS  
- _Set #_: 1**  
Character**: Lugia  
- _Pairing_: Oathshipping  
- _Universe_: n/a**  
Rating**: E (Everybody)  
- _Warnings_: none

- i - k - u - z - o -

**Kai met you as a child once; kai did not let you remember. You touched may face, kissed shi, and told shi you believed. You smell of the burnt cinders of home, your aura burning fire, and you were not only of may enshriners, but may ruinous equal's, also. You smell of the fires of Ecruteak three hundred years ago, and the wind kai ride.**

**Kai have been angry too long. Kai come back to you, to be purified by one kai keep remembering, in the dark caves of may home. Tell shi you love shi, Little Son.**

Falkner woke up to a silver feather beside him.


	71. Lyra

**Edition**: Back to Basics (sixteenth set)  
- _Set #_: 4**  
Character**: Lyra  
- _Pairing_: Keepershipping  
- _Universe_: n/a**  
Rating**: E (Everybody)  
- _Warnings_: none

- i - k - u - z - o -

"Stop being such a stick in the mud," Lyra fussed, and Falkner threw an arm up, because the other was currently captive to her vice grip. "Only children resist so stupidly!"

"Aren't you being the childish one?" Falkner choked, and said with as much dignity as he could. "You want to go into a _ball pit_."

She pouted irritably. "I only have you for the next couple of hours! Fal, please! You could be a little bit more cooperative here."

"Find something a little bit more adult to do!" Because Falkner would happily watch her play; he'd die before he joined her. Because the carnival had come to town, and Lyra had made Falkner promise to go with her weeks before it even arrived. Already she had put fried foods in his mouth, made him win her a few prizes at the game booths, and gone on a couple of the rides. Those were fine; those were _fun_. Regressing to child-like needs and wants, however, Falkner drew a line at such nonsense-

Lyra drew up and kissed him on the cheek. "Please," she whispered, sounding mature beyond her years. "We'll be on the road in a few days. We won't see you for months. Please indulge a little selfishness."

It was hard resisting her when she asked like that. Dragging him to the ball pit became somewhat easier, and even if all he did was stand there-in a sea of spheroids cool to the touch-was it hard to admit: he liked watching Lyra enjoy herself with the kids.

She kissed him again, later, when their time was up, and said, "Have fun with Khoury!"


	72. Khoury

**Edition**: Back to Basics (sixteenth set)  
- _Set #_: 5**  
Character**: Khoury  
- _Pairing_: Instigateshipping  
- _Universe_: n/a**  
Rating**: E (Everybody)  
- _Warnings_: none

- i - k - u - z - o -

The "boyfriend" was more sensible when it came to activities. Usually led around by Lyra, Khoury had a bit more freedom when he had some reign over Violet's Gym Leader. Not that he abused it much, but Falkner made it clear: Khoury was allowed to have his way. And while he enjoyed the carnival, too, Khoury was somewhat more prone to wandering the town, and always happy to have a guide.

Strangely, it was Khoury who had opened up to the possibility to a revolving relationship. It was the oddest thing Falkner ever thought he'd be in, where he would be with one, then the other, and they would be _together_, and they were kind of together with him at the same time, but... Khoury was brave every now and then. All started with: "He's...attractive."

Lyra had told him it was a big difference to Khoury's self-deprecating nature, to admit something of the like, so to honor it, she approached Falkner on both their behalves (because Lyra had been of a like mind, and according to her, they weren't together; Falkner, however, weaseled out that, yes, Khoury did like Lyra _that way_, too) with the outlandish proposition, "Will you date both of us?"

Who did that?

But watching them together made him think, "They should be together," and watching Khoury exercise his right to be assertive made him believe, "This is like therapy," and as weird as it all was, they were a good pair of kids. Loved each other secretly, both wanted this odd relationship-

"Hey," Khoury said, "it's almost time. Should we go find Lyra?"

The boy was bright-eyed and happy. So what was Falkner to do but bend to his whim. "Yeah, let's go find her."


	73. Jackson

**Edition**: Back to Basics (sixteenth set)  
- _Set #_: 3**  
Character**: Jackson  
- _Pairing_: Chanceshipping  
- _Universe_: n/a**  
Rating**: E (Everybody)  
- _Warnings_: none

- i - k - u - z - o -

"I challenge you!" shouted the boy who looked like someone else Falkner couldn't place. Regardless, Falkner was cringing inwardly (and grimacing outwardly) as he got to his feet.

"What are you wearing?"

"Do you like it?" And the challenger twirled, the cape billowing from the motion and the wind, and just as quickly got tangled around his body. "It's my magnificence!"

He had battled opponents with gimmicks before, but something about the kid read "impressionable." Falkner doubted this was the result of his own uninfluenced thinking. Well, bad fashion wasn't a reason to decline a challenge (sometimes it should be). "Does my challenger have a name?"

"I am Jackson from New Bark Town, newest wonder to the known world and-" _He likes to talk_, Falkner thought balefully, and artlessly tuned the child out until his mouth and body had stopped moving. Until finally: "Do I have the pleasure of your acceptance?"

"Two things, Jackson," Falkner punctuated as he unclipped a monster ball from his belt and thrust it forward. "It's _my_ pleasure to battle new trainers. And two, if you want to get far in this world, cut the introduction to your name and hometown. Battling gets done when everything is short and sweet. And you want to battle the League, right?"

Violet City's pride and joy was probably going to regret trying to lay some impression into the child, because Jackson's eyes were alight with easy admiration. "Yes, master!"

Yeah. Dammit.


	74. Jimmy

**Edition**: Back to Basics (sixteenth set)  
- _Set #_: 1**  
Character**: Jimmy  
- _Pairing_: Motileshipping  
- _Universe_: n/a**  
Rating**: E (Everybody)  
- _Warnings_: none

- i - k - u - z - o -

He has photos of his adventures, which he loved to show off. Perhaps he only liked showing them off because he got to drape himself over Falkner's shoulders to do so, but Jimmy did so with such gusto that Falkner didn't think the boy had much of a motive beyond, "I gotta show ya!"

"Why is this boy wearing a cape?"

Jimmy soured in an instant. "He's just a weirdo, thinking a cape will get him this girl, y'know? It's so embarrassing."

Falkner hmmed. "If it was you, I would think you were cute."

"You're not cute for saying such a thing!"

"It's cute you deny it. But I suppose, on him, it does look a little strange."

"That's right, that's right!" Jimmy insisted. "It's ridiculous!"

Falkner reached up to grab his wrist and tugged them down, bringing the boy as close as he could come to flush against his back. "I think you worry too much about your friend. It takes confidence to be and act different. Envy him, just a little."

Jimmy made a sullen noise and dropped his chin to rest entirely on Falkner's shoulder. "Logic hurts my head."

"Well then. Shall I take care of you?"


	75. Marina

**Edition**: Back to Basics (sixteenth set)  
- _Set #_: 2**  
Character**: Marina  
- _Pairing_: Cloudshipping  
- _Universe_: n/a**  
Rating**: E (Everybody)  
- _Warnings_: none  
**Note**: For Krait, who was patient, and I kept worrying with all my plans, I'd never get to this. ...Those plans were sidelined, SO! Ta~da~

- i - k - u - z - o -

She liked sitting in his lap, for no reason other than it was there (so she claimed). Marina was a forward woman, and she was equally driven to her own dreams and desires. To be an idol on the Contest circuit was one of them. Reminding Falkner she loved him was another. "I like saying, 'I love you,'" she told him one time, sitting right where she was now. "Sometimes you blush and sometimes you smile, and sometimes you say it back. I like everything you do when I say it."

So while he was reading a book, her warmth permeating his small troubles and soothing them for the short time, Falkner leaned a little closer to her dozing form and whispered, "I love you."

Marina turned to look at him with a bewildered expression, her own cheeks beginning to heat up, and Falkner instantly thought, _I get it, now._


	76. Skyla

**Edition**: Unova Request Hotline version Lady (seventeenth set)  
- _Set #_: 2**  
Character**: Skyla  
- _Pairing_: Atmosshipping  
- _Universe_: n/a**  
Rating**: E (Everybody)  
- _Warnings_: none**  
**

- i - k - u - z - o -

In the whole of the world, the top Flying masters were mostly women: Winona, Heaven, Robyn, the starlet Mavis, his mother, the list went on.* But the high-flyer of the Unova league was certainly not like the rest. If Whitney were less directionally challenged, she would be Skyla (who seemed to be excellent with directions; it was almost scary, in contrast). The other women he's encountered all had the air of grace and a higher sense of mannerisms.

Falkner wasn't sure if she was a breath of fresh air or perception-shattering, but one thing was for sure.

...She was sort of cute.

- m - a - t - t - e -

* = All OCs.


	77. Hilda

**Edition**: Unova Request Hotline version Lady (seventeenth set)  
- _Set #_: 3**  
Character**: Hilda  
- _Pairing_: Rookshipping  
- _Universe_: Psychic Fabric**  
Rating**: E (Everybody)  
- _Warnings_: none**  
**

- i - k - u - z - o -

"Babysitting a pack of kids?" the stranger asked earnestly, as said pack were admiring two of her partners. "You look too grumpy the type. And stuffy."

Falkner frowned. "They don't breed etiquette in Unova?"

In contrast, Hilda smiled brightly. "I'm actually trying to goad you into a battle. I'm more used to them coming to me in droves, so I'm a little rusty. Would you take me on?"

"People normally just _ask_ me. Or challenge me outright." Falkner shook his head. "You might want to try one of the kids."

Hilda's eyes were expressive, and she cast a glance back to her Pokémon and the children, then looked back and said, "I don't want to try any of them. I want to try _you_." And the way she put it, with emphasis, hardly left to the imagination what might have been going through the girl's mind.

He stepped into that one, didn't he?


	78. Iris

**Edition**: Unova Request Hotline version Lady (seventeenth set)  
- _Set #_: 5**  
Character**: Iris  
- _Pairing_: Kiyohimeshipping  
- _Universe_: n/a**  
Rating**: E (Everybody)  
- _Warnings_: none**  
**

- i - k - u - z - o -

Dragons were flyers, just like birds. But every dragon Falkner knew of could fly in some way, at some point in its evolution line. So when it came to the dragons of the distant lands...

"_None_ of your dragons fly?" Falkner asked the young apprentice, incredulousness.

"None!" Iris piped. "None of mine do, anyway. Hydreigon flies, but it's considered too dangerous. Drayden has one, but he doesn't use it to battle much. Not against trainers coming to the gym, anyway."

"But you've never flown on a dragon."

"No?" Iris blinked. "Is flying so special?"

Slay him on the spot and gut him postmortem. Falkner blindly grabbed her arm and hauled her onto her feet, at the same time releasing Pidgeot from its ball. "You have no idea."


	79. rival Bianca

**Edition**: Unova Request Hotline version Lady (seventeenth set)  
- _Set #_: 1**  
Character**: Bianca  
- _Pairing_: Drottningshipping  
- _Universe_: n/a**  
Rating**: E (Everybody)  
- _Warnings_: none**  
**

- i - k - u - z - o -

She exhausted him just by talking. Or standing up. Or smiling. Because she was always doing something, moving, explaining, going off the grid in her own reality she had to be piercing another reality through the heart. Truly, the world heaved a sigh in satisfaction when she was born, for all the labor it might have taken to produce one such as her.

But Bianca was one of a kind, because Falkner was convinced two of her _could not exist_, and Lord have mercy on the planet if there were. But she tried everything, had a million and nine dreams, and could do whatever she wanted. Most importantly, she had the ability to say, "No."

Falkner had never been envious of a klutz before, but after hearing her story...she was far freer than he was. So treating her to lunch after she had collided into him (when he should have been attending an appointment with his mother) was much to his pleasure as it was a homage, in an ironic sense of sweet, sweet poetry.


	80. Elesa

**Edition**: Unova Request Hotline version Lady (seventeenth set)  
- _Set #_: 4**  
Character**: Elesa  
- _Pairing_: Clippedshipping  
- _Universe_: n/a**  
****Rating**: MA (Mature Audiences)  
- _Warnings_: **semi-graphic sex****  
**

- i - k - u - z - o -

Ah, Kami-chan thought, this is electricity. Sharp, dangerous, cutting, burning, and ripping through her body like an ungrounded bolt of lightning. Men were usually passionate with her, but never did kisses, touches, feel like an attack. There was an ungentlemanly quality to how he handled her. He bit her skin, her breasts, the pads of his fingers roughed over her hips, dug into her thighs, and his countenance was akin to masochistic pleasure, boring straight into her (both metaphorically and physically). But she felt at ease with his fervent pace, like there was nothing to worry about, like she would still come out on top, in the end.

He smelt like the wind, a human scent washed clean by cloud-riding. It was calming in the face of his attempted domination, but, ah, she still felt him, and it was _satisfying_.

"What was that?" she murmured, curiously, nipping at his ear as her bare leg coasted up his side, both covered in a faint layer of sweat.

He hmmed tiredly. "You tasted like something I hated."

"Really." Pause. "I never would have thought hate could feel so good."


End file.
